


In The Mirror Appendix: Revised and Replaced Chapters

by CorvetteClaire



Series: In the Mirror [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, SEE STORIES FOR FULL LIST OF TAGS!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22485475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvetteClaire/pseuds/CorvetteClaire
Summary: This Appendix contains the original versions of chapters that I have revised or completely replaced in the storiesSins of the FleshandThe Wages of Sin.These are single chapters taken from multi-part fics. They will not make sense if you haven't read the entire story and are not meant to be read as stand-alone works.All warnings and tags from the full stories may apply! DO NOT READ without checking these tags!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: In the Mirror [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1117977
Kudos: 11





	1. Sins of the Flesh: Chapter 15

**Author's Note:**

> This Appendix is meant for those of you who've read the _In The Mirror_ series and like the fics as they were originally published. I feel very strongly that some of the later chapters need to be revised, but I realize that some of you may not agree. So I'm preserving the original versions of those chapters here, where you can read them if you like.
> 
> Each chapter title indicates the story that it came from and its chapter number in that story.
> 
> The first chapter is the original version of the final chapter in _Sins of the Flesh_ , which I revised several months ago.

**_Happy Christmas, Mr. Potter_ **

They apparated onto the rug before the sitting room fire, still wrapped around each other and so lost in their kiss that was some minutes before Draco looked up to notice where they stood. He glanced around the room, taking in the glittering tree, then shot a provocative look at Harry from beneath his lashes and murmured, “Planning to fuck me under the Christmas tree, Potter?”

Harry flushed adorably and rolled his eyes to cover his embarrassment. “Always the romantic.”

“How would you put it, then?”

The flush on his cheeks deepened, but his smile was pure seduction. “That I hope to consummate our marriage to the glow of Christmas candles and the strains of Celestina Warbeck?”

“Don’t you _dare_ touch that wireless, you prat.” Draco nipped at Harry’s lips, tempting him into another searing kiss, murmuring, “Gorgeous fucking Gryffindor prat…”

Their mouths met, melted together, feasted on each other, while Draco moaned his encouragement. His blood was singing, burning, rushing to his cock, which was already threatening to burst his jeans. He tightened his arms around Harry’s neck, letting the taller man’s shoulders take his weight, and hooked one leg around his hips. Harry responded by grasping his arse in both hands to pull their groins together.

Fucking hell! Harry had a Firebolt in his pants!

Need throbbed in Draco’s guts, hot and heavy and desperate. The need to climb astride that broomstick and ride it ’til it tore him in two. He rocked his hips, driving their erections together, dragging a moan as hungry as his own from Harry.

“Get my clothes off,” Draco gasped, as Harry slid a hand up under the tail of his shirt to stroke his back. He shivered at the delicate scrape of fingernails over his skin. The shiver turned to a deep, almost painful shudder when Harry’s searching fingers found one of the old scars just below his shoulder blade and scratched lightly over it. Draco let his head fall back, a whimper rising in his throat.

“Harry, _please!_ ”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

“What the f…” Draco began, lifting his head only to have his mouth captured by Harry’s once more. He made a disgruntled noise that turned to a hum of pleasure at the thrust of Harry’s tongue between his lips and the continued play of Harry’s hands over his back. He began to move again, rubbing his swollen cock against the magnificent hardness in Harry’s trousers and letting the heat of their friction course through him.

By the time Harry broke the kiss, Draco was teetering on the brink of climax, held back only by his determination to have his husband’s cock inside him when he came. Harry pulled back with a groan, then pressed his forehead to Draco’s and shut his eyes, breathing hard.

“Fuck,” he panted, “fuck, Draco…”

“That’s the idea,” Draco whispered. “What are you waiting for?”

“I have to be sure…”

“Oh, for crying out fucking loud! Are you _serious?_ ”

“Absolutely.” Lifting his head and turning to look at the empty doorway, Harry called, “Kreacher!”

Draco uttered an explosive, “ _Bloody Hell!_ ” and tore himself out of Harry’s arms in the same instant the the ancient house-elf appeared in front of them.

Kreacher bowed low. “Master called?”

“Of course he fucking called,” Draco snarled, stomping over to the settee and flinging himself down on it. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Draco Malfoy is angry with Kreacher,” the elf said lugubriously. He bowed again and began to wash his hands in distress. “Kreacher only wants to serve the husband of his master, the last scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of…”

“I know what I am! You don’t have to remind me every time you open your mouth!” He crossed his arms defiantly and added, “And my name is Potter, not Malfoy.”

“Kreacher is sorry for offending Draco Potter. Kreacher will punish himself after he does Master’s bidding.”

“No, you will _not_ punish yourself,” Harry cut in firmly. “Draco’s just taking his frustrations out on you. It’s not your fault that he’s a bad-tempered prick.”

“Hmph,” Draco snorted, but he did not contradict that statement.

He _was_ a bad-tempered prick. There was no arguing with that. He was annoyed with Harry for interrupting what promised to be a truly transcendent fuck, and he was taking it out on Kreacher. But he’d suck a hippogriff’s cock before he apologized to his honorable, heroic, self-sacrificing imbecile of a husband or that ancient sack of subservience and bile that passed for a house-elf!

“I need sobering potions,” Harry went on calmly, ignoring Draco’s magnificent snit. “Do we have any of them in the house?”

Kreacher frowned and rubbed his hands together, as if contemplating ironing them. “Master has never asked Kreacher for such a thing before. Kreacher does not know.”

“Well, have a look. If we don’t…” Harry broke off and scratched his head, obviously trying and failing to come up with a source for potions at this hour of the night on Christmas Eve. Kreacher came to his rescue.

“If Master does not have the potions, Kreacher can find them at Hogwarts. The Fat One keeps them in his cupboard.”

“That’s brilliant. Thank you. But ask Professor Slughorn before you take anything from his stores,” Harry added sternly.

“Yes, Master.”

Kreacher was gone in an instant, leaving the two wizards alone. Harry dropped onto the settee beside Draco and looped an arm around his shoulders. Draco did not relax his stiff posture or uncross his arms, even when Harry pulled him in tight to his side and nuzzled at his jaw. His lips sucked a bruise into the soft skin of Draco’s throat, then kissed it lightly, teasingly.Draco huffed and looked away, only coincidentally giving his irritating prat of a husband more room to work.

Warm, wet lips slid down his neck, sending a shiver over his skin and dragging a grunt of mingled approval and disgust from him.

“Quit sulking, Dragon,” Harry breathed against his tingling collarbone.

“Why not just throw a bucket of ice water over my head?” Draco demanded, pretending he didn’t notice Harry’s hand sliding up his thigh toward his crotch. “It would be a damned sight less awkward than snogging me in front of the family house-elf!”

“You think he’s never seen the members of his precious Family snogging before? Or worse?”

“I really don’t want to think about it.”

“Then don’t. Kiss me.”

Draco turned to glare at him but found his head pinned by a fist in his hair and his lips captured in a bruising kiss. He grunted something that might have been a protest, if he weren’t leaning into the kiss and opening his mouth hungrily to Harry’s searching tongue. The hand on his thigh drifted up to push against the painful swelling in his jeans, and in the next breath, Draco was turning to swing a leg over Harry’s thighs, to climb astride him, to press his body hard into the other man’s.

The _crack_ of Kreacher’s reappearance jerked him out of a lovely, heated embrace and dragged a groan of pure agony from him. Crumpling against Harry, he hid his face in the other man’s neck and screwed his eyes shut, refusing to succumb to his embarrassment and give up his place on his husband’s lap. Harry tightened both arms around him possessively.

“Soon, my dragon,” Draco heard murmured in his ear.

“Kreacher has the potions for Master,” the house-elf croaked.

“Thank you. Put them on the table,” Harry replied easily.

Still Draco refused to lift his head. He heard the elf’s shuffling steps and the clunk of glass striking the wooden table.

“Draco and I will want privacy for the rest of the night,” Harry went on, his words going straight to Draco’s already enflamed cock.

Oh, yes. They most certainly would. And if Kreacher interrupted them again, he’d find his head mounted on the wall of Grimmauld Place along with his ancestors.

“You can do whatever you want. Join the rest of the staff at Hogwarts for the feast, or hang out at Grimmauld Place with Walburga’s portrait, or… well… what do house-elves do for fun?”

“Master will let Kreacher visit his Family’s home?” The disbelief and hope were plain in Kreacher’s voice.

“Of course. You know you’re always free to go there, and this is Christmas. You should enjoy yourself. Even if that means talking to some foul-mouthed old portrait,” Harry added dryly.

“Kreacher is most grateful. He apologizes for all the bad things he has said about his master and will punish himself after he finishes preparing breakfast tomorrow…”

“No,” Harry cut in hastily, “you won’t. And we don’t need you to make breakfast for us either, so don’t hurry back. In fact, you don’t have to come back at all, unless you really want to. You’re a free elf, yeah? You can do what you want, including stay at Grimmauld Place with your mistress.”

Kreacher’s voice was harsh with reproach when he croaked, “Kreacher will never desert Master Harry or his most noble husband. Kreacher will die before he fails in his duty to his Family.”

“Oh, all right, never mind,” Harry said with a sigh. “But don’t come back too early. We’ll make our own breakfast.”

Draco waited until he heard the distinctive _crack_ of Kreacher disapparating, then he lifted his head to gaze down at Harry. He could still feel the traces of a blush in his cheeks, but whether it was from embarrassment or the lingering heat of their kisses, he couldn’t say.

“If I drink that bloody potion, will you take me into the bedroom and shag me senseless?”

Harry nodded solemnly. “I will.”

“I have your word on it?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” He made a little X over his heart with one finger.

Draco frowned in confusion. “What was that?”

“The Muggle equivalent of an Unbreakable Vow.”

“Git.”

Harry just laughed and reached out one hand toward the table. Two crystal flasks flew into it. Another burst of magic unsealed their corks, sent them flying off into the room for Abraxas to find, then he offered one to Draco.

When they each held a flask, Harry lifted his in a salute and murmured, “Cheers, love.”

Draco mirrored his toast, raising his flask, and downed its contents in one swallow.

It was a Pepper-Up potion. It burned through him as fiercely as a shot of Firewhiskey, searing away the gentle numbness of the brandy in his blood and clearing the fog from his brain, driving the breath out of his lungs in a rush. Smoke poured from his ears.

“Merlins balls!”

“Fuck me sideways!” Harry gasped. “You okay?”

“He might have warned us, that evil little…”

“At least it worked. You’re sober, yeah?”

“As an undertaker.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, grinning. “Well?”

Draco met his dancing, taunting eyes for a moment, savoring the glorious sight of his Harry—his _husband_ —looking up at him with such blatant desire, then he tossed aside the empty flask and flung both arms around Harry’s neck. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get consummating!”

Somehow, they ended up in the bedroom, sprawled across the huge, antique bed. Somehow, Harry got his clothes off so that he could paint hot, wet kisses across his skin. Draco didn’t know how. He didn’t care. At Harry’s first touch, he surrendered, let go and let himself drown in a sea of sensation. He was barely rational—sobbing incoherent pleas and writhing on the soft eiderdown—by the time Harry reared up over him and drove into his body. The familiar pain burned through him, followed in the next breath by a spike of agonizing pleasure, and he cried out in welcome.

Hands fastened in his hair, pinning his head to the mattress. The chest crushing down on his heaved as Harry drew in a shuddering breath. Lips dragged across his face, finding his mouth, then the corner of his eye. Draco’s lashes fluttered up, just as Harry lifted his head to gaze down at him. Their eyes met, and Draco’s filled with sudden, scalding tears.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Harry breathed. “I never thought I’d see you like this again.”

 _“_ Harry,” he whispered soundlessly.

“Dragon.” Harry tightened his grip on the long, silver-blond strands in his fists, forcing Draco’s head back and baring his throat, then he trailed his tongue up it, pausing to suck at the bruise he’d already left there. “Fuck, Dragon. I missed you so fucking much.”

“I missed you, too.”

Then Harry began to move and Draco lost all power of speech.

He wanted to see Harry come. Wanted it desperately. Had dreamed of it, lived on the hope of seeing it again, for longer than he cared to think and couldn’t bear to miss it now. So he ruthlessly held his own climax in check until he felt Harry gather himself for the final leap. Then he watched, breathless and aching with joy, as his lover came apart buried deep inside him.

It was beautiful. The fierce, brutal power of it. The rush of heat and wetness that fused their bodies together so perfectly. The look on Harry’s face, caught between agony and rapture, that morphed into soft, sated vulnerability. The way he collapsed onto Draco, unstrung, shaking, trusting his love to hold him together until he came back to himself.

Harry trusted him. That was the incredible magic of it. After all these years and all the damage Draco had done—to himself, to Harry, to the entire fucking wizarding world—Harry still trusted him enough to strip himself bare, drop his guard, and lie helpless in Draco’s arms.

Fresh tears gathered in Draco’s eyes, and he lifted his head to bury his face in the black hair tickling his chin.

How had he survived so long without this? Without Harry? How had he endured the emptiness, the loneliness, the hideous brutal fucking that had no love or warmth in it? No _trust?_

He must have sobbed aloud, in spite of his best efforts, because Harry bestirred himself to push up onto his elbows and gaze down at him. Draco let him go, though he didn’t want to. He wanted to cling to his husband-lover and weep into his hair, bathing himself in the other man’s warmth.

“What’s the matter, love?” Harry asked softly.

Draco shook his head, twisted away from those too-green eyes. His tears quickened. Another sob shook him.

“Hey.” Harry’s hand caught his chin and turned him to meet his gaze. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

Draco lifted a hand to touch Harry’s face, to brush his frowning eyebrow, the curve of his cheekbone, the fullness of his kiss-swollen lips. His fingers were trembling. Harry caught them, squeezed them, pressed a kiss to their tips.

“Then what is it? Tell me.”

“I just realized what I did to us. What I cost us, when I chose…” Twisting away again, he gasped, “ _Fuck!_ ” and clenched his eyes shut against his tears.

“Shh, it’s all right.”

Slowly, gently, Harry eased out of Draco’s arse and rolled to one side.

“Don’t go,” Draco pleaded, cringing inwardly at the desperation in his voice, and reached to grab his arm.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Harry landed on the mattress, balanced on his left hip and elbow, then he hooked his right leg over Draco’s and tucked a knee between his thighs. Draco turned his head sharply to the side and found Harry’s lips hovering just above his own. “I’m right here with you, Dragon. Always.”

Draco sighed as Harry’s mouth came down on his, then moaned as Harry’s hand closed around his cock. In the next breath, he was arching up into his lover’s grip, straining into his kiss, and whimpering with need. Harry brought him to a swift, brutal climax with his hand and mouth, then he gathered Draco into his arms and held him as the shuddering took him. Draco pressed his body full against Harry’s, oblivious to the come and sweat that smeared them both, letting his mind spiral out into the darkness for a precious minute, trusting his lover as Harry had trusted him.

When he finally drifted back into the present, Draco found himself lying face-to-face with Harry, their limbs tangled together, their lips just touching, various fluids cooling uncomfortably on their skin. He sighed and closed the last distance between their mouths. Harry hummed his pleasure, angled his head, slid his tongue into Draco’s mouth.

In the middle of their hot, languid kiss, Draco felt Harry’s cock stir and press against his thigh. Pulling slightly away, he murmured, “Ready so soon?”

Harry chuckled softly, down in his chest. “I told you once before that I’m always ready for you, especially when I’ve gone without for more than a day.”

“Yes, but we aren’t sixteen anymore.”

“We’re not exactly ancient. And I’ve gone a lot longer than a day without you.” Fixing Draco with laughing, green eyes, he murmured, “Have you had enough already?”

“Me?” Draco’s brows flew up. “You forget that I’m used to going all night. It’ll take more than one Gryffindor with an over-inflated ego to tire _me_ out.”

Harry did not so much as flinch at this reminder of Draco’s sordid past, just grinned and said, “Good. Because it’s not just my Gryffindor ego that’s over-inflated, and I’m in desperate need of some Slytherin arse.”

Draco felt a glow of gratitude at Harry’s easy acceptance that turned to a burn of lust when Harry rolled him onto his stomach and pushed his thighs apart. Then he was face-down in the quilt, clutching at it ’til his knuckles turned white, leg spread ’til his muscles burned and hips lifted hungrily, pushing back into Harry’s fevered thrusts. Against all reason, he was hard again, hungry juices pooling on the blanket beneath him, and Harry’s hand on his cock drew a keening cry from him.

They came together, one twist of Harry’s fist on his cock pitching him over the edge, even as Harry spurted deep inside him. Then they collapsed onto the bed to lie, panting and sweating, in a sticky heap.

It was hot and filthy and perfect. Draco never wanted to move, except maybe to bathe. Or to do it again. Both were a distinct possibility. The only question was, which one first?

Then Harry stirred and groaned, “I need a bath.”

That answered Draco’s question. Or he thought it had until he climbed into the bath and found Harry aroused and eager for Draco to ride him. Sinking down through the steaming water and scented bubbles, he settled onto Harry’s Firebolt with a long, guttural moan and proceeded to ride it with such ferocity that he slopped half the water out of the tub in the process.

Only when they had come for a third time, refilled the bath, dried the floor with one of Harry’s incredibly sexy wandless spells, and summoned a bottle of excellent Burgundy along with a couple of glasses did they finally relax. Between the heat of the bath, the softening effects of the wine, and the lassitude of multiple violent orgasms, Draco felt as if all his bones had melted. He lay back against Harry’s chest in their usual position—with no wet clothing between them this time—and closed his eyes in quiet euphoria.

Harry trailed a hand up his arm, then across and down his chest, tickling the hair at his groin before cupping his half-filled cock. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Mmm,” Draco sighed.

He didn’t bother to open his eyes, just spread his knees a little so Harry could fondle him more easily. His cock twitched, but he chose to ignore it. For now.

“So,” Harry went on, after taking a sip of wine, “have we properly consummated our marriage, or do we need a few more rounds to be sure?”

“Better to take no chances.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

Twisting around to kneel between Harry’s bent knees, Draco slipped his arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.

“This could take years,” he murmured, when his lips were free.

“Decades,” Harry agreed.

“Who knew this consummation business could be so demanding?”

“Or that Malfoys could be so conscientious?”

“Oh, we’re known for it. Anything worth doing is worth doing better than the common herd of humanity.”

“Hm. Sounds about right,” Harry purred, pulling Draco into another lingering kiss.

He was hard again, rutting his cock against Harry’s belly, by the time they broke apart.

“Ready for another flight?” Harry asked, a knowing glint in his eye.

“Always.”

“Then mount up, my beauty.”

*** *** ***

Harry awoke on to an empty bed. His mind still half lost in sleep, he reached out for the warm body beside his own and found nothing. That snapped him fully awake. Rolling over, he stared at the spot where Draco was supposed to be and felt his stomach drop.

 _No_ , he told himself, _don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe he’s just having a slash._

Pricking his ears, he strained for any sounds coming from the bathroom but heard nothing. Still he refused to dwell on the worst possible scenario. There could be any number of reasons why his husband had climbed out of their bed on this Christmas morning and left him without so much as a whispered endearment.

Wrapping presents?

Draco had no money for presents and no opportunity to buy them, even if he opted to spend some of Harry’s gold.

An unexpected owl?

It would have come looking for Harry, not his husband, since almost no one knew that Draco lived in the cottage.

Breakfast?

A smile broke over Harry’s face as he realized that this was, indeed, a strong possibility. Throwing back the eiderdown, he bounded to his feet and strode into the bathroom. Less than two minutes later he was back—bladder empty, face scrubbed, hair dragged into its usual state of disarray—scrambling into the first clothing he could find and pulling heavy socks over his feet to ward off the cold of the stone floors downstairs. Then he hurried out of the room.

He caught the sound of someone humming Christmas carols as he drew near the kitchen door and grinned to himself. Of course, it could be Kreacher puttering about in there, preparing breakfast for his master’s beloved Black spouse, but in all the years Harry had known Kreacher, he had never heard him hum. So it came as no surprise to him when he stepped through the doorway to see Draco standing at the sink with a kettle in his hand.

When Harry had last seen his husband, he was stark naked and thoroughly wrecked. He had tumbled into sleep without bothering to clean himself up or comb his hair, too sated and exhausted to care about hygiene. So the last thing he expected was to find Draco bathed and combed and dressed in a sky-blue nightshirt that fell to the middle of his thighs. It’s little cap sleeves, scoop neckline and thin fabric were entirely unsuited to the cold weather, so he’d cast a formidable Warming spell on the room that practically made the air glow with its power.

Harry watched in rapt delight as Draco flicked off the tap, tossed his head to throw his silvery curtain of hair back, and turned to place the full kettle on the hob. His feet in their woolly socks did a little dance-step, and he left off humming to sing a few words in Latin.

“ _Glo-oooo-oooo-ria! In excelsis deo!_ ”

“Bravo!” Harry called, laughing and clapping.

Draco broke off his song and glanced over his shoulder. His smile almost stopped Harry’s heart. Then he turned around, giving Harry a good look at the front of his nightshirt and drawing another laugh from him.

“What in bleeding hell is _that?_ ”

Draco smoothed a hand over the silkscreened image on his chest and stomach. “A flamingo, you ignorant heathen.”

“In a Santa hat?”

“It’s Christmas.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

The flamingo was also wearing fleecy red boots on its stick-thin legs and had a string of Christmas lights wound up its neck, but Harry didn’t bother to comment on these details. The picture was silly enough in itself, but the sheer Muggleness of it made it look even more ludicrous on the quintessentially magical, pureblood Draco.

Harry loved it.

Circling the table to reach his husband, Harry caught him round the waist and pulled him close. He dropped a kiss on the smiling, upturned lips. Draco returned the kiss, then pulled back

“It’s hideous. What possessed you to buy it?” Harry asked.

“Granger, of course. She dared me, and you know I never back down from a dare.”

“I’m sure you returned the favor and forced her to buy something worse.”

“Oh, hers is much uglier.”

Harry laughed and kissed him again.

“You don’t really dislike it, do you?” Draco murmured against Harry’s teasing lips.

His hands were twisted in the stretchy t-shirt fabric, pulling it tight across his bum and tugging it up to expose one smooth, porcelain cheek. Harry caressed the taut curve appreciatively and grinned down into Draco’s gleaming, winter-grey eyes. Beneath the flimsy shirt, Draco was starkers.

“I think it’s bloody brilliant.”

“I thought you might.”

Catching the smaller man by the thighs, Harry hoisted him up to perch on the edge of the counter. Draco spread his knees and hooked his feet behind Harry’s legs, drawing him in close. Then he tugged the shirt from beneath his arse and hitched it up around his waist. Harry glanced down and saw Draco’s cock jutting up proudly between them, already thick and hard and flushed with anticipation. Harry stared at it, his own prick swelling painfully, while Draco wriggled a bit to bring his body closer to Harry’s. Then he rocked his hips forward, blatantly rubbing his cock against the front of Harry’s joggers and the straining lump inside them.

“See that table over there?” Draco asked.

“Hmm,” was all Harry could manage with all his blood rushing straight to his groin.

“Think it would bear our weight?”

“You want me to fuck you on the kitchen table?” Harry panted, his hands now gripping Draco’s bare thighs hard enough to bruise, his hips thrusting forward, his cock desperate for contact with its mate.

“Call it my Christmas present.” Draco moved in for a kiss, lips clinging to Harry’s while their bodies strained together. “Or yours,” he amended on a groan.

“I was thinking… right here…” Harry freed his hands just long enough to push his joggers and pants down to his thighs, freeing his own raging cock, then reached for Draco again.

“Here’s good, too.”

Harry gave a breathless laugh, even as he cast a spell that filled his hand with lube. Pausing for a moment, fist closed, to let it warm a bit, he caught Draco around the waist with his free arm and pulled him roughly forward. Draco came to him eagerly, lifting his legs and falling back on his elbows, then gasping as slick fingers worked into him.

He was beyond ready, Harry knew at a touch, and he never wanted much prep. For all his fragile appearance, Draco liked his sex rough. Even painful, at times. Maybe it had something to do with his years as a sex worker, though Harry doubted that. He’d liked it that way back at Hogwarts, when they were just boys experimenting with their bodies and learning how to please each other. He’d always wanted Harry to use him hard, to demand more than he could easily give, to push and push until he came apart, screaming his lover’s name.

Last night had been about gentleness. Rediscovering each other. Reminding his battered husband what love could feel like. Harry had held back so as not to hurt him or to blur the lines between love and power.

Apparently, they were done with holding back.

Draco moaned as Harry pushed a finger into him, his head falling back and his eyes fluttering closed. He took a shuddering breath and twisted his hips, pulling against the intrusive finger.

“ _More,_ ” he groaned.

Harry obligingly pushed in another finger, dragging a panting growl from Draco.

“Stop fucking around, Potter!”

“Hey.” Harry pulled his hand away and put a mock scowl on his face, as Draco lifted his head and cracked open his eyes. “Is this my present or yours?”

“Does it matter?”

“If it’s my present, you have to behave yourself.”

“I never behave myself. And you’re going to fuck me to tears, either way, so get on with it already.”

“Twat. Shut it and come here.”

“Make me.”

Grabbing Draco by the hips, Harry pulled him roughly forward and down. Draco slid off the edge of the counter and onto Harry’s waiting cock, taking it in one long, relentless plunge with no time to adjust. He cried out in delight, head falling back again, chest heaving and legs spreading until the muscles in his thighs stood out like cords. Harry thrust upward, dragging another ragged cry from him, then caught a fistful of his hair and pulled him into a plundering kiss.

It was hot and glorious and as rough as Draco could want—fucking here in the little kitchen with Draco’s hands braced on the counter while he rode Harry’s bucking hips. They were gasping and grunting with the effort, totally ignoring the fact that they had a house-elf in residence who was probably listening to their cries, so lost in the heat of their laboring bodies that they wouldn’t have noticed Kreacher standing right beside them. Harry came first, the sweet agony in his guts exploding in a rush of hot, slick wetness that filled his husband and seemed to melt their bodies even more perfectly together.

He staggered under the onslaught, his knees going weak and his vision swimming with spots. Catching at the counter for support, he leaned into Draco, shuddering atop him, gasping for breath. Draco held him with arms and legs, bit at his throat, sucked bruises into his flesh, and whispered fiercely,

“Don’t stop, Harry!”

“Never,” Harry breathed, even as he tightened both arms around Draco and lifted him away from the counter.

Staggering under the other man’s weight, with his own body limp and drained, Harry stumbled over to the nearest chair and dropped into it, settling Draco astride his lap. Draco lifted his head to gaze at him in lust-addled confusion, then he groaned and fastened his lips to Harry’s. In the next moment, they were once more moving together, hips rocking, thighs working, breaths mingling, rising toward another shattering climax.

Soon Draco was grunting with every breath, every thrust. He threw his head back, eyes closed and lashes twitching, mouth falling open. Harry took one look at him and felt his heart crack.

 _So beautiful_ , he thought, not realizing that he had spoken the words aloud until he heard Draco give a small sob and saw tears glittering in his lashes.

“You are so beautiful,” he repeated, stroking Draco’s bruised, sweat-dampened thigh, then reaching up to caress his throat.

“Harder…” Draco gasped, “please…”

Harry obediently heaved up under him, driving his cock deeper into him and earning a breathless moan in answer.

“Oh, f- fuck… _Fuck! Harry!_ ”

The first tremors gripped Draco, a familiar ecstatic pain contorting his features, and his words turned to a long, formless, guttural cry. Harry drove into him once more, then caught him in both arms as he slumped forward, body convulsing with pleasure. Hot, slick juices pumped across Harry’s belly, soaking his shirt. Draco collapsed against him, going boneless in his arms, and his head dropped to Harry’s shoulder.

Harry held him for a long, shuddering minute, petting his back and hair to soothe him. He didn’t dare break the silence until Draco finally stirred and lifted his head. Using Harry’s shoulders for leverage, Draco pushed himself upright and looked down at his husband with blurred, tear-bright eyes.

He smiled. Bent to rest his forehead against Harry’s. “So whose present was it?”

Harry grinned. “Both, I think.”

Draco sighed his agreement and brought his lips to Harry’s in a long, sweet, sated kiss. “Happy Christmas, Mr. Potter.”

“Happy Christmas, Dragon.”

**_Finis_ **


	2. The Wages of Sin: Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the new and improved version of this chapter, see _The Wages of Sin_ , Part 3 of the _In the Mirror_ series.

**Chapter 11: _Confessions_**

* * *

_The Quibbler_

**_SKEETER IMPLICATED IN MEMORY THEFT_ **

_…Sources inside the DMLE reveal that the veteran reporter offered to buy specific pieces of evidence being held in trust by the Special Commission on War Crimes and Reparations, if the thief could smuggle them out of the Ministry. She then paid a substantial amount of gold for memories that she knew were stolen. No memories were found in her possession, but certain details printed in one of her recent articles were confirmed to have come from the stolen memories…_

_…Skeeter will likely face charges of receiving stolen goods, among other things, for her part in the theft…_

* * *

_Magisch Zeiten_

**_ANOTHER KIND OF MEMORY THIEF_ **

_Britain’s Ministry of Magic today announced that highly sensitive evidence, consisting of memories taken from witnesses in an unspecified case, has been stolen from within the Ministry itself. Two suspect are in custody at this time—infamous scandalmonger Rita Skeeter and Ministry flunky Clive Prewett. Prewett is believed to be the mastermind behind the theft, offering to sell Skeeter the memories for gold and for the pleasure of holding up certain high-profile figures to public ridicule in the Press. Skeeter apparently took the bait and bought the memories for use in one of her poison-quill exposés…_

* * *

_The Daily Prophet_

**_RITA SKEETER ON INDEFINITE LEAVE_ **

_Reporter and Biographer Rita Skeeter is on an indefinite leave of absence, pending resolution of personal and legal matters. Publication of Ms. Skeeter’s articles by this newspaper will be suspended until such time as she returns. We at The Daily Prophet apologize for this interruption and express our hope that Ms. Skeeter will be back with us soon. In the meantime, we will do our best to speed the course of Justice and cooperate fully with the Ministry’s investigation into this matter._

_On a personal note, I would like to say that I have worked with Rita Skeeter for many years and have always found her to be an honest, diligent, ethical journalist with the highest professional standards. I am deeply troubled by the accusations leveled at her, but I have no doubt that they will prove to be false. I wish her well._

_—Barnabas Cuffe, Editor in Chief_

* * *

“It’s house-elf magic.”

The words struck Harry in the chest like a Killing Curse. They ripped open his flesh. Smashed his ribs. Wrapped around his heart in a cold fist and squeezed… squeezed… _squeezed_ …

“A house-elf? That’s mental!” he heard Ron protest.

He ignored the inevitable argument brewing between his two best friends, moving blindly to his chair and sinking into it.

“An elf wouldn’t do something like this! It _couldn’t!_ ”

“Your pureblood prejudice is showing, Ron,” Hermione scolded.

“It’s not prejudice!” Ron insisted. “It’s common sense! Elves can’t harm wizards!”

“Of course they can. They’re sentient creatures, with emotions and impulses and the power to act on them.”

“Yeah, but…”

“You only say they _can’t_ because they _haven’t_. They were slaves, so how could they? But they’re not slaves anymore, and obviously, some of them are starting to understand that.”

She huffed and went on, “Honestly, we should have expected things like this to start happening, once the elves realized that they were no longer under our control. But we’re so short-sighted, where other Magical beings are concerned, that we don’t consider the consequences of our actions.”

“You sound like you _want_ it to be an elf, if only to teach us a lesson!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, her tone scathing. “The last thing I want is for the wizarding world to decide that elves are _dangerous._ ”

“Didn’t you just say that they are?”

“No more so than witches and wizards. Or Centaurs. Or Veela. Or any of the other Magical beings we live with everyday! They’re _people_ , Ron! _Individuals_ with their own ideas of right and wrong, just like us!”

“Hold on… if those scans prove it’s elf magic, why didn’t the Forensics boys spot it?”

Hermione scoffed at that, rolling her eyes. “Wizards don’t see elves. Or their magic.”

“I still don’t…”

“I know who it is!” Harry blurted out, cutting them off in mid-rant.

They both turned to fix startled eyes on him.

“What did you say?” Ron demanded.

“I know who it is. _Merlin’s Bloody Balls!_ It was right there in front of me the whole time! Hermione’s right! We’re all a bunch of short-sighted idiots!”

“You’re saying there’s an _elf_ involved in this?! You didn’t tell me about any elf!”

“I didn’t think about it.” He shot Hermione a chagrined look. “I didn’t see her.”

In the next breath, he bounded to his feet, leaping over the pile of spilled books on his way to the door.

“Oi! Where’s the fire, mate?”

“I’m going to catch a Memory Thief. Coming?”

Ron scrambled to follow, but Hermione stopped them in the doorway with a sharp cry. “Wait! Harry, what are you doing?! You can’t just entrap a defenseless house-elf without…”

Something very close to a growl rose in his throat, cowing her into silence. Then he said, through his teeth, “She’s not defenseless. She’s a criminal and a murderer.”

“I don’t care.” Hermione gulped, lifted her chin defiantly, and set her jaw. “I won’t let you bully that elf!”

“Stay out of it, Hermione!” he snapped, turning on his heel to leave.

“I’m coming with you!”

“ _Stay out of it!_ ”

Then he was gone, Ron offering an apologetic shrug to his wife as he followed close on his heels.

* * *

By the time the guards came for him again, Draco had lost count—of his interrogations, his hours of captivity, his rapists, his humiliations, his muffled sobs and tears hidden behind a screen of hair. He had gone to a place where none of that mattered. A place of cold and terror and constant pain. Where words made no sense and faces warped under his eyes into things too hideous to contemplate. Where the shades of his father and Lord Voldemort lurked in the corners, watching him bend over for one cock while swallowing another, watching and enjoying his defilement.

They cut his hands free. Without the ropes to hold him upright, he collapsed into the straw, too desperately cold even to shiver, too pathetically weak even to lift his head. They levitated him with a _Mobilicorpus_ until he was floating between them—feet dangling, head lolling on his shoulder—then they guided him out of the cell.

They were none too gentle about it. His feet kept scraping against the floor and his shoulders knocking against the walls of the stairwell. He knew it hurt. Some part of his brain felt it. But in that dreadful place, each new pain was much like the last. Part of the landscape.

He was vaguely aware of arriving in the interrogation room, where Pompous and Nasty waited for him. Lucius was there, too, never very far away anymore—waiting for him, probably, anxious for his son to join him. And Voldemort. And his snake, who was in the process of swallowing… something. Draco didn’t want to know what.

The anonymous guard lowered him onto his stool, then stood behind him and caught a fistful of his hair. Suddenly, the levitation spell was gone, and only that cruel fist held him upright. He kept his eyes open with an effort, knowing what was expected of him. The lids were bruised and swollen, gritty, hard to move, but he managed to get them up high enough to peer at Nasty through his sticky lashes.

His face kept shifting. Blurring. The lips thinning ’til they disappeared and the nose flattening…

Oh, please. Please, Merlin, no.

“Nngh—no,” he mumbled.

“Give him some water.”

The voice was right, but the tongue was forked at the end and the eyes were glowing red.

The weedy guard put his flask to Draco’s lips, while the other wrenched his head back by the hair. Draco drank the water that poured into his mouth. It hurt to swallow, hurt to feel anything in his stomach, hurt to think that a mouthful of water would keep him alive for another day when he wanted so desperately to die, even if it meant being with his fucking father. But he drank without protest because he had no protest, no resistance, no volition left in him.

When the guard lowered the flask and stepped away, the Warwick-Voldemort thing in front of Draco smiled. His mouth seemed to stretch and stretch, splitting his face and his head until it looked as if the top half would just fall away. Draco pictured his snake-like tongue wriggling between his teeth, exposed to view, and wanted to laugh hysterically. Instead, he gagged.

“You ready to talk yet, Malfoy?”

Draco opened his mouth to obey—to say what he had no idea—but all that came out was a kind of whimper.

“He looks pretty out of it,” Pompous said.

“Give him some Pepper-Up. It’ll clear his head.”

The guard behind him tilted his head back again. The other pressed glass to his lips. Draco swallowed burning-hot liquid that seared down his throat and into his cringing stomach. He gasped, wretched, choked on bile, clenched his watering eyes shut. The fist in his hair loosened, and he slumped forward onto the table.

“You sick that up and I’ll make you lick it off the floor,” Warwick-Voldemort said.

Draco bit his lip ’til blood filled his mouth but did not vomit. Slowly, he felt heat crawling through his body, thawing his chilled limbs, flushing under his skin, quickening his blood. He blinked, and the room around him solidified. Took on color. He breathed out and felt warmth in the air that passed his lips.

“Get him up. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

The hand twisted in his hair and pulled him up to lean against the body at his back. It was warm, too, and Draco exhaled what was almost a sigh of relief. His stomach still churned, threatening to bring up the potion, but its effects gave him the illusion of alertness.

He looked across the table and saw that the man seated opposite him was just Warwick. Nasty. The Auror who loathed and despised him. Not the snake-faced, noseless horror who wanted to consume his soul.

Maybe there was some mercy in the world.

Maybe.

“They’ve been hitting him in the face,” Warwick said, his eyes flicking to the weedy guard. “They need to lay off the face. Give it time to heal.”

“They get a bit excited,” the guard explained, his voice whiny and defensive. “It’s hard to control them, once they get going.”

“It’s your _job_ to control them,” Warwick snapped back. “If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone else.”

“I thought we were done, anyway.”

“I’ll tell you when we’re done.” Turning his eyes back to Draco, Warwick said, “Do you know who I am, Malfoy?”

Draco ventured a nod, pulling against the fist in his hair.

“Say it. Nice and clear, so I can understand you. Who am I?”

“Warwick,” he rasped out.

“That’s _Auror_ Warwick. Or _Sir._ Say it.”

His mouth moved of its own accord, forming words his mind had not formulated. “Auror Warwick.”

“Good. And what’s your name?”

“Draco Potter.”

“Ah, ah. Don’t play games with me. Tell me your _real_ name, you Malfoy _cunt_.”

“Draco… Malfoy.”

“Very good.” Leaning back in his chair, he shot a look up at MacMillan, who stood behind him. “I think we’re ready.”

* * *

Harry paced the drawing room at Grimmauld Place, eyes darting from the hearth with its mundane orange flames to the window where no owl perched, brain seething with that combination of certainty and fury that had consumed him from the instant he heard Hermione’s words.

_It’s house-elf magic._

Of course it was house-elf magic. Only a fucking idiot could have missed it, which clearly he was, because he’d stood in Narcissa’s parlor and listened to a house-elf practically admit to the crimes and not seen it. He’d let Draco be arrested and not seen it. He’d _wasted three fucking days_ and not seen it!

Ron stepped into the room, a cup of tea in his hand. “No answer, yet?”

Harry shook his head. Kept moving.

He had sent Narcissa a Patronus the moment they arrived in the townhouse. _Need to meet in private! Send location at once!_ Her continued silence—no Patronus, no floo-call, no owl tapping on his window—was driving him round the twist, though he knew rationally that it might take her some time to arrange such a meeting. To shake off both Lissy and her Unmentionable shadows. To get a message to him undetected.

If she didn’t manage it soon, he’d apparate to her fucking cottage and _kidnap_ her!

The flames in the fireplace suddenly flared green and the wards tingled. Harry spun around to see Narcissa’s head floating in the fire.

“Open your floo, Harry. I’m coming through.”

He froze for a moment, his mind scrambling to grasp all the implications of this request, but then his hand was coming up of its own volition and his magic gathering. He opened the floo with a wordless spell, and Narcissa Malfoy stepped out of his fireplace, brushing soot from her impeccable robes.

“Seal it. Quickly.”

Harry obeyed without hesitation. Then, for good measure, he sent a pulse of magic into the wards, locking them. In a matter of seconds they were, to all intents and purposes, untouchable.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Harry asked, even as he took Narcissa’s hand and guided her over to the magnificent, Chippendale sofa. “You’re not supposed to be in England.”

“Do you want to argue about it, or do you want to tell me what this is all about?” She sank down on the satin-covered cushions and turned huge, hollow, fearful eyes on him.

Her eyes were the only part of her that betrayed emotion, Harry noticed. For Draco, it was different. It was his mouth that betrayed him—that wide, beautiful, expressive mouth—while his eyes remained eternally shuttered.

Pushing away thoughts of Draco that could only gut him when he needed all his wits about him, he sat down beside her on the sofa. He still held her hand. It was cold but steady, like the rest of her.

“Right.” He licked his lips nervously. “I need to know if you ever told Lissy about what Lucius was doing.”

Dead silence met his words. Narcissa stared at him, her face perfectly composed but deathly white, then cut her eyes over to where Ron still stood in the doorway, tea cup forgotten in his hands. Harry caught the direction of her gaze and understood at once.

“You can speak freely in front of Ron. He knows everything.” Then, as she stiffened, he hurried to add, “Draco told him. Please, Narcissa, this is very important. Did you tell her?”

Narcissa swallowed, her long throat visibly working, then whispered, “I didn’t have to. She was there.”

“There? In the Manor?”

“In his room. In _every_ room where…” Another swallow, and her voice died to no more than a breath. “She healed him. Cared for him when I was’t there to do it.” Tears gleamed in her eyes. “Lucius told her that it was punishment, that Draco deserved it, and forbad her to tell me, so she was all he had.”

“And she… told you this. Recently.”

Narcissa nodded. “After Draco’s visit. After he revealed what had happened.”

Harry let his breath out in a rush. He glanced up at Ron, as the other man drifted over to the nearest chair and sank into it, eyes huge in his blanched face. They exchanged a wondering look, then Harry turned his attention back to Narcissa.

“Does she know now that Lucius was lying? That Draco hadn’t done anything wrong?”

She nodded again, one hand pressed over her mouth and tears gathering in her lashes, threatening to spill over.

“Narcissa, has Lissy been behaving… strangely?” At her frowning look, he went on, “Only, when I saw her, she seemed angry. Hostile, even.”

“She’s been nothing but kind to me.”

“But?” Harry prompted.

“But she was angry when she found out that Lucius had lied to her. She was angry with herself for not seeing it and with him for using her. She wanted to punish herself for letting those men hurt her dear young master, but I asked her not to.”

“What about the men? Did she say anything about punishing them?”

Narcissa shook her head. Fixed wide, hunted eyes on him. “Harry, are you saying… Do you believe that Lissy…”

“Is the Memory Thief? Yes.”

“ _Oh, Merlin_ ,” she breathed, her hand coming up to cover her mouth again.

Steeling himself, Harry asked, “Can you give me any reason why I _shouldn’t_ believe it? Any alibi or circumstance that would make it impossible?”

She shook her head almost frantically.

“Narcissa.” Her eyes flew to his face, huge and tear-drenched. “I need to question her. Will you help me?”

“Yes. Yes, anything.”

He felt the tension leave his body in a rush, replaced by eagerness. Purpose. _Hope._

“Good. We need to get her here—that should be easy enough—and find a way to keep her here. To shut the wards so she can’t disapparate.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“There must be a way. The Ministry locks certain locations, like Azkaban, to prevent elves from getting in to free their masters. There must be a way to prevent them from getting out, as well.”

“Will the Ministry aid you in this?”

Harry shook his head glumly.

“Why don’t you ask the elf?” Ron said, breaking into the conversation for the first time. When both Harry and Narcissa turned to him, he shrugged and smiled crookedly. “Kreacher’s a right git, but he’s smart. And he’s ancient. Knows all about old traditions and magic. So, if anyone would know…”

“Kreacher!” Harry called, cutting him off.

The old house-elf appeared in front of the sofa with his usual noisy alacrity, bowing to Harry, then even lower to Narcissa. His nose was nearly pressed to his knees when he croaked, “Kreacher welcomes Miss Cissy to Grimmauld Place!”

“Hello, Kreacher,” she said, with a wan smile. “I hope you’ve been well?”

“Kreacher is never well, but Kreacher does his duty. He would be happy to serve the daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black!”

“Right, then,” Harry interjected, impatient with the courtesies, “if you want to serve Narcissa so badly, then answer a question for us.”

Kreacher turned reproachful eyes on him and bowed stiffly.

“Is there a way to stop an elf from apparating away from this house?”

Kreacher blinked, taken aback. Then he ventured, “Master Harry does not wish Kreacher to leave his former Mistress’ house?”

“No. I want to bring another elf here and make sure that _she_ doesn’t leave.”

Another blink. Another pause. “Master Harry wishes to imprison a house-elf.”

“Only while we talk to her. And possibly until the Ministry sends someone to question her.”

“And this will serve Miss Cissy?” His eyes instinctively sought Narcissa.

She leaned forward, bringing her smooth face close to the ancient, wrinkled, sagging one turned up to her so imploringly. “Yes, it will, Kreacher. I promise you. We don’t want to hurt Lissy, only to learn the truth so we can bring my son home.”

“Master Draco?”

“Yes.”

“To do this, you must imprison the elf?”

“We must hold her here while we question her, but I’ll be honest with you. Lissy may be in very serious trouble. She may have done things to anger the Ministry and to put Draco in danger, and if that’s the case, she won’t be allowed to go free. But we must find out. And to do that, we need your help.”

Harry bit his tongue, waiting on tenterhooks, until Kreacher finally nodded and croaked, “Kreacher will do this. For his masters, and for the daughter of the House of Black.” His dinner-plate eyes swiveled to Harry. “Kreacher trusts Master Harry to do what is right.”

Harry nodded solemnly, gratitude swelling in him. “Thank you, Kreacher. What do you need to prepare?”

“Kreacher only needs the elf.”

“Right, then. Narcissa? Will you call her?”

Narcissa tilted her head back and called, loudly, “Lissy!”

There was an ear-splitting _crack_ , and Lissy materialized just in front of Narcissa, clean and precise in her crisp, white shift. She bowed low to her mistress, then looked around curiously, taking in the room and the other creatures in it. If she noticed Kreacher snapping his fingers or the discharge of magic in the air, she did not betray it.

“Mistress is wanting Lissy?”

“Yes. Will you sit down with me?”

The little elf continued to gaze around the room, her eyes huge and glowing green. She did not accept Narcissa’s invitation to sit.

“Lissy is never seeing this house before. Lissy is wondering where she is?”

“This is my home,” Harry said.

“Sit down, Lissy, please,” Narcissa urged.

Lissy gave her a dubious look. “It is not being proper for Lissy to sit in Harry Potter’s home. And Lissy is not knowing the other wizard or the house-elf who is looking at her so rudely. She is not liking this. She is thinking that Mistress should be coming home with her.”

“We can’t leave, yet. Harry needs to talk to you.”

Lissy turned her enormous eyes on Harry, and he saw a distinct reproach in them. “Is Harry Potter bringing Master Draco home, as he promised? Or is he lying to Lissy again?”

Harry heard Ron draw in his breath at her challenging tone. He was beginning to see the Lissy that Harry saw. The Lissy that could commit terrible acts to avenge someone she loved.

“I’m trying to bring Draco home. That’s why we’re here.”

“You is wanting Lissy’s help?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, making her ears flap. “This is good. Lissy is glad.”

“Right. Then tell me the truth, Lissy. Have you been punishing the wizards who hurt Draco?”

She answered without a blink, “Yes, Lissy is doing this.”

The bluntness of her answer caught Harry off guard, knocked him off balance. It took him a moment to right himself, then he asked, “What did you do to them?”

“Lissy is doing to them what they is doing to her young master. She is tying them up and putting things in them that hurt. Then, when they is saying they is sorry, when they is crying and begging for mercy, she is giving it to them.”

“What kind of mercy?”

“She is taking away the hurt. Lissy is knowing it is wrong to be hurting other creatures, so she is making them forget the hurt, once they is sorry. She is also taking Master Draco away from them. Taking him out of their bad, cruel minds, so they is having no part of him.”

“What about the man who died? The one you sealed in Draco’s room?”

Her face darkened. “That man is evil. He is doing terrible, wicked things. Lissy is looking in his mind, as Mistress is teaching her, and seeing all the terrible things he is doing to Master Draco and she is so angry…” She scowled, her eyes snapping with green fire. “She is not sorry. She is glad the evil man is dead and is not hurting her young master again. She would be killing him again, if she could, making him sorry.”

“Lissy…” Harry broke off to clear his throat and soften the edge in his voice. “Do you realize that hurting and killing those men was wrong?”

She gave him a reproachful look and chirped, “Lissy is not doing wrong things. Those wizards is doing wrong things, and they must be punished. Harry Potter is not punishing them. Other good wizards is not punishing them. So Lissy is punishing them. Lissy is doing right.”

She looked around at the circle of faces confronting her and said, firmly, “They is doing wrong. They must be punished.”

Harry took a moment to absorb this—to grapple with the pride, the absolute certainty of right in the little elf—then he asked, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“Harry Potter is not asking.”

“But when the Aurors came for Draco. When they arrested him for _your_ crimes…”

Her eyes widened in horror, cutting him off. “What is Harry Potter saying?!” she squeaked.

“The Ministry believes Draco hurt those men. That’s why they took him away.”

Tears instantly flooded her eyes and began to pour down her cheeks. “Lissy is not knowing this! Mistress is not saying! How is Lissy knowing that wizards is being so wrong and so stupid and so _cruel?!_ ”

“Calm down, Lissy…”

“Lissy is never hurting her young master! Lissy is loving her young master more than anything! Lissy is only punishing those men for _him!_ ”

Suddenly, before anyone could stop her, she turned and rushed at the hearth, flinging herself onto the stone and banging her head furiously against it.

“ _Lissy is sorry! Lissy is sorry! She is punishing herself! She is the one who did wrong, not her master! Make the wizards give him back!_ ”

“No! Lissy!” Narcissa wailed, surging up off the sofa to reach her.

Kreacher got in before her, freezing Lissy with a snap of his fingers, then levitating her to a softer spot on the rug. The elf was still crouched, tensed, head angled to smash into the floor, but she could not move except to blink. Tears still ran in streams from her horror-filled eyes.

Harry watched all this with a lump of sickness in his stomach. Lissy’s tears were already soaking into the rug, darkening it, and her nose was dribbling across her face. She watched Harry, eyes huge and tragic, as he crossed to her and knelt beside her. He laid a hand on her twig-like arm.

“It’s going to be okay, Lissy. I’ll make them give him back.”

He rose to his feet. Drew his wand. Sent a thick stream of liquid, silver light pouring from its tip that coalesced into a stag.

“Go to Kingsley Shacklebolt. Tell him, _Come to Grimmauld Place at once! It’s urgent!_ ”

The stag dipped its great, antlered head, then bounded through the wall and disappeared.

For a beat, no one spoke or moved. Then Narcissa drew close to Harry and murmured, “Shacklebolt? Are you sure?”

Harry nodded and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “He’s Draco’s friend. He’ll straighten this out.”

* * *

What followed was surreal. A fever dream worse than anything that had come before.

Draco heard words coming out of his mouth that he hadn’t summoned, heard himself admitting to things he didn’t know had happened. He watched a quill scribble his words down on parchment—those words that came out of nowhere—then stop when Warwick told it to. When Warwick or MacMillan or one of the guards were forcing the ugly words from his mouth with a wand or a fist.

He was confused. In pain. Desperate to escape, if only into the death he knew awaited him. He tried to fight them, to swallow the words, but they always managed to drag them out. And once they started, they wouldn’t stop. Instead of parroting what they said to him, he imagined his own crimes, his own horrors, his own depraved longings that he poured out for their enjoyment…

…Lucius coming to him, demanding that his son pleasure him the way he had so many others, and Draco welcoming it, begging for it, always eager to please his father. Lord Voldemort standing by while his Death Eaters took turns with his willing catamite, rubbing himself off and laughing when his come splashed Draco’s face. Professor Snape giving him detention so he could bend him over a desk in the Potions dungeon and bugger him to tears. Harry turning away from his loathsome classmate in disgust until Draco went down on his knees in front of him, pleading for his help, offering his body in a shameless attempt to entrap the susceptible hero…

This last tore agonized sobs from him. Squeezed hot tears from his eyes. He begged them to let him stop, to say it was enough. Warwick laughed. MacMillan snorted and called him a slag.

“At least Potter will see you for what you are. Finally.”

“No,” Draco whispered, eyes clenched shut against scalding tears, “I’d never hurt Harry.”

“You won’t get the chance,” MacMillan assured him, brandishing the scroll with his damning words filling it. “After this, you won’t ever _see_ him again, much less _touch_ him!”

“He’s… he’s m-my husband. He’ll c-come for me.”

“You can put _that_ right out of your head! There’s no one coming for you, Malfoy. Except maybe Greyback.”

“Please!” He was weeping in earnest now, tears coursing down his cheeks, sobs shaking his pain-wracked body. “I did what you asked! I s-said… I told you…”

“The _truth!_ For the first time in your miserable life, you told the _truth!_ And now, everyone is going hear it, including the man you suckered into marrying you!” He bent over, bringing his face within a handspan of Draco’s. “You are _fucked_ , Malfoy, and not the way you like it! You are fucked, and no one cares.”

“Harry,” Draco whispered, the sound barely passing his lips.

“You should be calling for Greyback,” MacMillan sneered, his lip lifting in disgust. “He’s your daddy, now.”

“Let me go!” Draco moaned, eyes still shut to block out MacMillan’s looming face and hateful words. “I did what you asked!”

“Take him back to his cell,” Warwick said dismissively, “and tell the prisoners to go a little easier on him. No more marks on his face.”

“No,” Draco gasped, eyes flying open as the guards hauled him to his feet. “Not again! I told… I told you everything…”

Warwick gave him a cold look, then shifted his eyes to the guards. “No sleep yet. Not ’til we have approval of the charges from the Wizengamot. Go on,” he flicked his fingers, “get him out of here.”

“No!” Draco began to thrash and kick, tears running hot down his bruised cheeks. “No! Please! Harry! _Harry!_ ”

They dragged him to the door. He fought them, but he was weak. Starving. Dizzy with exhaustion and pain. Even his voice sounded thin and shrill, a pathetic wail that touched no one, no matter how loudly he screamed.

They were taking him back to Hell. To cold and filth and endless, hateful fucking. To Fenrir Greyback. And he could do nothing to stop them. Nothing to save himself.

“ _Harry!_ ” he sobbed, as they dragged his limp body down the corridor. “ _Harry, I can’t! I can’t! Please!_ ”

* * *

Clive Prewett was a loathsome creature. As much as Robards hated to agree with the Savior on anything, he had to admit that Potter was right about that. Two minutes after walking into the interrogation room where the man sat, he was already itching to hex the sullen scowl off his face.

What was it with these pureblood ponces that made them so unbearable? Malfoy. Prewett. There was nothing to choose between them. Though, if he were being fair, he’d have to admit that Malfoy wore his toffy-nosed entitlement with a decided air, while Prewett was just an insufferable tit.

A night in the cells had turned him from swaggering to petulant, but it had not quite crushed his spirit. He was in full flow, threatening Robards with everything from charges of false imprisonment and cruelty, to a public flogging. Robards took it without a blink, but he was running out of patience. He kept his hands folded atop the file that contained the Skeeter woman’s testimony—the testimony that would send this pureblood ponce straight to Azkaban with his higher-class twin—and counted down the seconds before he let the axe fall.

“I may only be an undersecretary to the undersecretary,” Prewett fumed, “but I have friends in the Ministry! Friends who will not stand by while a power-hungry martinet in red robes tramples on my rights! And my family still has _some_ influence! We may not trumpet our bloodlines or abuse our power, like some families I could name, but we are _still…_ ”

“Yes,” Robards said dryly, “quite.”

Prewett shut his mouth with a snap and glared daggers at the Auror.

“Much as I’m enjoying this little tantrum of yours, I do have other things to do today. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to it.”

Prewett drew in a tremendous breath, ready to cut loose again, but only got out, “I _will not_ be spoken…” before Robards cut him off again.

“Shut it, boy. I’ll speak to you any way I like. And I’ll tell you right now that your precious family isn’t saving you from this one. You’re going to Azkaban for stealing those memories.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Prewett grumbled, slumping down in his chair and crossing his arms defiantly.

“Rita Skeeter says differently. And since she’s the one who’s cooperating—giving us testimony under Veritaserum and memories of her conversations with you—she’s the one who’ll get the best deal.”

Prewett squirmed uncomfortably, his gaze sliding away. Robards just waited. Let him sweat for a minute.

Finally, he said, “Skeeter.”

“Rita Skeeter. The reporter you’ve been feeding stories on Potter and Malfoy since the New Year.”

“What does she say about me?”

“No, that’s not how it works. You tell me your side of the story, and I’ll decide who to believe.”

“Hmmph.” Then, more sullenly still, “What do you want to know?”

“Whose idea was it to steal the memories?”

“Hers. Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“She said she’d pay a fortune for the evidence that had cleared Malfoy with the Wizengamot. She’d been scrabbling for everything she could get on him, like a Niffler after gold, and that was the one thing she couldn’t find. She didn’t even know what kind of evidence it was or where it had come from.”

“But you did.”

Prewett smirked. “Pauncefoot has a big mouth for a woman with so many secrets.”

“And you agreed to sell her the memories.”

“It wasn’t just about gold. The Public had a right to know how a cock-sucking Death Eater managed to escape prison and waltz into the sunset with the Sodding Savior!”

“So, this was a public service?”

He smirked again, even more annoyingly. “You could say that.”

“What about the theft? How did you know where to find the memories?”

“Pauncefoot keeps all that sort of thing in a warded cabinet in her office.”

“Do you have access to this cabinet, in the normal course of your job?”

“Not bloody likely.”

“How did you get in?”

His sneer twisted into something nastier. More taunting. “With a little help from a friend.”

Robards’ ears pricked at that. “You weren’t alone?”

“Oh, I did it myself, but he taught me the spells to counter the wards without triggering an alarm.” A grin split his face, baring his teeth. “He was only too happy to help, when I told him what it was for. You see, he wants to bring Malfoy to justice as much as I do.”

“Who was it?”

Prewett’s grin was pure venom. “Edmund Warwick.”

Robards gave a perfunctory knock on the Minister’s door and strode in without waiting for a response. He was deep in thought—brooding, more accurately—and barely noticed a figure in red robes slumped in a chair just inside the door. His eyes found the empty desk, and frustration rose in him.

Why wasn’t bloody Shacklebolt ever where you needed him to be?

“Sir?”

He looked over his shoulder to see MacMillan bounding to his feet. The young Auror looked painfully excited, fairly vibrating with tension.

“What are you doing here, MacMillan? Shouldn’t you be working on that confession?”

“We’ve got it, sir!” He held out a fat scroll of parchment. “Right here! Warwick sent me to deliver a copy to the Minister!”

“Malfoy’s confession?”

He turned fully around and frowned down at the scroll in the other man’s hand. For some reason, he did not feel any satisfaction or vindication at the news, only foreboding. Prewett’s accusations sat like a bruise in his mind, turning his thoughts bloody and dark.

He took the scroll from MacMillan’s hand but did not unroll it.

“Yes, sir,” MacMillan crowed. “You should have heard him! The filth… He’s _filthy!_ Despicable! And now we have it from his own mouth! Once Potter reads this…”

Robards looked up sharply, frowning, and MacMillan broke off. “You haven’t showed this to Potter.”

“Not yet, but when I’m done here, I’ll make sure he gets a copy. I have to say, I never expected to get this much. I hoped we’d get him on the Memory Thief crimes, but the rest of it? I never dreamed he’d admit to the _half_ of it!”

Robards finally opened the scroll and began to read. He felt his stomach drop.

It was everything MacMillan claimed and more. Ugly. Filthy. Damning. But wrong. So wrong. He felt it, down in his bones. Years in the field, hundreds of interrogations, dozens of hours spent in those cold, brutal rooms beneath Azkaban told him that this was _entirely wrong_.

Malfoy may have said every word. He probably had. But he hadn’t volunteered it. Hadn’t understood it. Hadn’t known where he was, much less what he was saying.

Robards knew it the instant he saw the words scribbled on the parchment. And he knew, with absolute certainty, that Potter must never see this, or they were all dead.

“Where’s your partner?”

“Preparing charges for the Wizengamot. He’s filing them today.”

“No, he’s not.” Robards let the scroll close and lifted furious eyes to his underling. “Go find him and…”

At that moment, the door swung open.

* * *

Harry stepped into the Minister’s office at Kingsley’s side, only to pull up short when he realized that Robards and MacMillan were there before them. Kingsley checked in surprise, then continued on his way to his desk, nodding to Robards.

“Gawain, I’m glad you’re here. We have news.”

“So do we, Minister!” MacMillan blared, pushing past his superior with blithe disregard for Robards’ scowl. “We’ve got Malfoy’s confession!”

“Have you?” Kingsley shot the young Auror a look from beneath lowered brows, then accepted the scroll that Robards reluctantly handed to him. “I see.”

“I think MacMillan’s getting a bit ahead of himself,” Robards said.

“I expect he is.” A smile flashed across Kingsley’s dark face. “Since we have the Memory Thief in custody.”

Robards’ jaw dropped. He looked from Kingsley to Harry, then to Ron, completely gobsmacked.

“I’ve just been to interview the suspect. There’s no question. We’ve got our Thief.”

“I don’t know what kind of game Potter’s playing, but we’ve already got our Thief,” MacMillan protested, “in Azkaban, where he belongs!”

“Back off, MacMillan,” Robards growled.

“Are you that desperate, Potter?” he demanded, ignoring Robards and bearing down on Harry. “You’ll put an innocent person in the frame, just to save Malfoy? The man’s a shirt-lifter! A degenerate! He admitted it! Told us all about his revolting games at the Manor with Daddy and Lord—”

Harry’s magic closed in a fist around MacMillan’s throat, cutting off his flow of words and his flow of oxygen at the same time. He went rigid, scrabbling at his neck but finding nothing to grab. His face turned a shocking shade of red. His eyes widened in panic.

Harry stared dispassionately at him, as if studying a bug pinned to a card, not caring that a room full of wizards were watching him throttle one of his colleagues.

“Oi. Mate.” Ron murmured. “Ease up.”

Harry released his magic with a thought and watched MacMillan stumble backwards, collapsing into a chair. He wheezed and gasped and spluttered, shooting horrified looks at Harry and pleading ones at Robards.

Harry waited for someone else to speak. When no one did, he said to MacMillan, his voice as hard and cutting as goblin-forged steel, “Don’t say another word about my husband. Not now, not ever. If I hear his name come out of your mouth, I’ll fill it with something that will taste even worse than your lies.”

“I’m not ly—”

“MacMillan!” Robards barked.

The young Auror turned startled eyes on him.

“Get down to HQ and find Warwick. Tell him to wait in his office for me. Neither of you is to leave that room or touch one piece of paperwork until I come. Do you understand?”

MacMillan gulped. “Yes, Guv.”

“Good. Move.”

Harry waited until MacMillan had scurried out of the room, his tail between his legs, then he fixed a challenging stare on Robards. “Are you going to bring charges against me for attacking a fellow Auror?”

“No.” Robards dropped his eyes to the scroll that Kingsley was now reading. “But I will ask you to stay away from those two until we get this sorted.”

“Fine. If you’re not going to arrest me, then give me a warrant for Draco’s release. I want him out of Azkaban _today_.”

Kingsley looked up from the scroll. His face looked faintly green beneath the dark brown of his skin. “That would be my pleasure.”

He thrust aside the scroll, and Robards snatched it up, clearly not wanting Kingsley to see any more of it or Harry to get his hands on it. Not that Harry wanted to touch the thing. He’d rather eat dragon dung.

“I’ll deal with this,” Robards said, tucking it into his sleeve. “I have reason to believe that Warwick has stepped over the line more than once on this case. And if he coerced a confession out of a suspect…”

Harry’s snort of disgust cut him off. “ _If?_ ”

“See that you retrieve all copies,” Kingsley said, as he pulled a fresh sheet of parchment toward him and picked up a quill. “We can’t afford another leak of damaging secrets to the Press, especially ones that are so patently untrue.” The dark eyes found Robards and held him, petrified, for a moment. “As anyone with a grain of sense can see that they are.”

Robards nodded stiffly, gaze skating away.

“I’d be happy to destroy that copy,” Harry said, flexing his fingers and letting his magic spark.

Robards threw him a reproving look, telling Harry that he wasn’t quite ready to surrender yet. Well, so be it. Harry could still bring down the pillock, if he had to, and right now only Draco’s freedom mattered.

Meanwhile, the Minister had dipped his quill in a crystal bottle full of ink and begun to write. He did so quickly. Neatly. Inscribing a few lines of text without pause or correction. Then he dusted them with sand to dry the ink and brandished his wand.

A flash of light, a surge of power, and it was done.

Kingsley held out the little scroll to Harry, turned up to show the blob of purple wax with his Lynx sigil melted into it.

“There you are, Harry. Go, now. Quickly.”

* * *

They apparated straight to the island, the warrant with its magical seal opening the wards for them. Harry headed from the apparition point to the fortress at a near run, so buoyed up by excitement that he didn’t feel the cold wind off the North Sea cutting through his Weasley jumper or the harsh rock of the island digging into his trainers. He passed through the heavy portcullis that blocked the main entrance as if it were smoke. And he was moving so fast by the time he reached the guard room that Ron, even with his longer legs, could hardly keep pace with him.

He flung open the guard room door, barreled inside and up to the high wooden desk without breaking stride. A guard stood behind it, munching on battered fish and checking off items in a ledger with a moth-eaten quill. He looked up at the thud of the door against the wall, jaw suspended in mid-chew, goggling at the two men in Muggle clothes bearing down on him.

“We’re here for Draco Malfoy,” Harry said by way of greeting. He halted directly in front of the desk, fairly vibrating with eagerness. “What cell is he in?”

“Here, now… What’s the meaning of…”

“Draco Malfoy,” Harry repeated firmly. “Cell number. _Now_.”

“You can’t just barge in here and demand to see a prisoner! How’d you get through the gate, anyway?”

Realizing that the man was going to be no help at all, Harry reached for the ledger lying on the desk in front of him. He spun it round to read it, knocking a paper tray of fish and chips to the floor in the process.

“Hey!” the guard protested. “That’s my supper!”

Harry’s eyes scanned the lines of script. “This is the visitor log. Where’s the prisoner roster?”

“Malfoy isn’t on the prisoner roster. He’s being held special, for questioning, and he’s not allowed visitors.”

Harry glanced up at the guard and felt a wave of revulsion go through him. The man was about Harry’s height, but much too scrawny for a prison guard—any half-starved Death Eater could easily overpower him—and his ginger beard looked as if it had been chewed by the same moths that had gotten to his quill. But the most unsettling thing about him—the thing that filled Harry with instinctive distrust and dislike—was his eyes. They were red-rimmed, furtive, set in pouchy folds, and they reminded him unpleasantly of Mundungus Fletcher.

Harry stared the guard down for a moment, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Rufford,” the man muttered.

“Well, Rufford, we have a warrant from the Minister for Magic that says we can see whoever the fuck we want, and we want to see Draco Malfoy! So give me his cell number, or go explain to Kingsley Shacklebolt why you wouldn’t!”

The guard stared sullenly at him for a moment, then muttered a string of numbers.

“Thank you.”

Harry turned and bolted through the inner door.

He took the winding stairs two at a time, climbing ever higher in the grim fortress, ignoring the burn in his muscles and the shortness of his breath, intent only on reaching his goal. He’d long since left Ron and the reluctant, heel-dragging Rufford behind. They would catch him up eventually, and he had no intention of slowing for them. He tried to count the levels he passed but lost track somewhere around thirty. Then he started firing bursts of light at the archways that led off of each landing, reading the numbers carved in the lintels.

Ten more levels to go. Five. Two. Then he was there.

Grinning now, his heart pounding with anticipation, he stepped out of the stairwell and into a narrow, dark, dank, stone passage lined with cells on either side. The torches mounted on the walls seemed to suck up more light than they shed, but Harry didn’t care. He didn’t need their light. He started running again, his gaze straight ahead, avoiding the furtive movements in the cells he passed.

Rustling. Scraping. The occasional cough. Then a low chuckle and a voice calling, “What’s your hurry, Potter?”

Harry ignored it all. His eyes had found something well down the passage, on the left, ghostly in the grey shadows. Hands. Still, white hands, sticking from between the bars, fingers curled helplessly. And something else—something spilled onto the floor in a silver-gilt puddle.

His breath caught and he quickened his pace. He was running so fast that when he reached the cell, he had to grab a bar to stop his headlong dash. His momentum spun him round, through the open door and into the cell. Then he dropped to his knees, not feeling the stone bite into them.

“Draco?”

The man lying naked in the straw in front of him did not move. Gave no sign that he heard his voice. He was huddled on his knees, back bowed, wrists tied to one bar with magical ropes and head tied to another with a fistful of his own hair. Ugly black bruises painted his ribs, as if someone had tried to cave them in. More bruises, cuts and welts where spells had struck him striped his back, shoulders, arms and legs. Blood painted his thighs.

He was breathing—Harry could see his ribs lift as he inhaled—but otherwise, he might have been a statue. Or a corpse.

Harry laid a tentative hand on his back. It was icy cold, but he wasn’t shivering. He moved the hand to rest on his head, stroked his hair gently, then clasped his hands. They were even colder than his back, if that were possible.

“Draco? Wake up, Dragon, it’s me. Come on, love…”

“You’re wasting your time with that one, Potter! He belongs to me!”

Harry’s head jerked up, his eyes searching for the source of that ugly, gravely, disgustingly familiar voice. He saw a ragged figure standing at the bars of the cell directly across the passage, but for a moment, he didn’t recognize it. Then the prisoner grinned and licked his jagged teeth. Horror congealed in Harry’s stomach.

It was Greyback.

“I’ve been waiting for a taste,” the werewolf growled, “and now it’s my turn! Now that your lot are done with him!”

Harry fired him a killing glare and turned away. He had no time for a skirmish with a prisoner. Not when Draco was freezing or bleeding to death in front of him.

Bending over the still body of his husband, he whispered, “It’s going to be okay, now, love.” At the same time, he sent a Warming spell washing over him.

Draco shuddered. Took a longer breath. Then let it out on a tearing cough.

Harry shifted closer to him and gently clasped his head.

“Did you know he cries your name when he comes?”

Harry was not even aware of lashing out. The fury and magic erupted in him so suddenly that he had no chance to even think about controlling them. One moment, Greyback was standing at the bars, grinning obscenely at him, and the next, he was flying to the back of his cell, his body striking stone, swallowed by the darkness.

Ron chose that moment to come bustling down the corridor, dragging Rufford with him. “Harry?!” he called. “What was that?!”

“Nothing,” Harry answered tersely. He could hear Greyback whimpering and snarling in the back of his cell, but that truly was nothing. Only Draco mattered.

Ron jogged up to the bars and stared into the cell. “ _Bloody Hell_ ,” he muttered, “is he alive?”

Harry glanced up into his stunned, sickened face, nodded, then turned his attention back to his husband.

Draco had fallen still again, the Warming spell dissipating in the dank, chill air. Harry cast another, then banished the ropes on his wrists with a thought. Draco’s hands dropped heavily to the floor. Ron knelt and wrapped his own, larger, freckled hand around one of them.

“He’s freezing.”

“I need something to cover him.” Harry looked up and around again, hunting for inspiration. Both he and Ron had left home that morning without robes or coats, wearing nothing warmer than their Weasley jumpers. And the cell didn’t have so much as a handkerchief in it.

Then his eyes fell on the guard.

“Give me his robes.”

“What?!” Rufford gasped. Ron made a grab for him, and he ducked away. “You can’t…”

“Give me your fucking robes!”

Shoving the guard up against the wall, Ron brandished his wand and split his uniform robes open down the front.

“Did you do that to him?” he hissed, as he jerked the fabric down off the man’s arms. “Did you beat him half to death and rape him and leave him tied to the bars by his own fucking _hair?!_ ”

Rufford cowered away from his towering rage, arms up to shield his face from the wand waving dangerously close to it. “I didn’t! I swear, I never touched him! It was only a bit of fun to keep him awake…”

“A bit of fun?! _Bloody fucking hell!_ ”

He bundled up the robes and tossed them into the cell, where Harry caught them, but he never took his eyes or his wand off Rufford.

“Who did it?! Who’s idea of fun was it?!”

“Just some… some p-prisoners,” Rufford stuttered, “old friends of Malfoy’s…”

Ron abruptly slammed his arm into Rufford’s throat, stifling his words and pinning him to the wall. Then he jabbed his wand into the side of his neck.

“You want me to kill this piece of shite, Harry?” he barked without taking his eyes off the guard.

“Not yet. See if you can untie Draco’s hair.”

Harry shook out the robes and spread them gently over Draco’s bowed back, tucking them carefully around him. Then he fired off another Warming spell. This time, Draco stirred, pulling his hands into his chest and trying to turn his head. It caught on his knotted hair.

“Nnngh!” he grunted, low in his throat.

“Shh.” Harry slipped both arms around him and pulled him close to his own body. “Hold still, Dragon, just for a minute.”

“Har-ry…” he whispered, brokenly.

“Yes, love. I’m here.”

But Draco didn’t seem to hear him. He wasn’t speaking to Harry, but calling for him and expecting no answer in return. He tried again to turn his head, twisting his bound hair painfully, and sobbed Harry’s name in a desperate, pleading voice.

“Hold him still!” Ron urged. “He’s pulling it tighter!”

“Cut it,” Harry said thickly. He hadn’t realized that he was crying until he tasted the salt of tears on his lips.

“ _Diffindo,_ ” Ron whispered.

The silver-gilt strands parted and Draco slumped to the floor, free. Harry caught him before his head hit the straw. He gathered his husband up in his arms and cradled his head against his shoulder.

“Draco?”

His face was bruised and cut, both eyes blackened, lips spit and bloodied and crusted with substances Harry didn’t want to think about. At the sound of Harry’s voice, his silver-blond lashes twitched up. Harry caught a glimpse of opaque grey eyes looking blind against the purple bruises, then the lashes fell again.

“I’m sorry about your hair, but I’ll fix it, I promise,” Harry murmured. “I’m good at growing hair.”

“Nngh.”

At the throaty, little sound, Harry gave a sob of relief and pressed a kiss to Draco’s forehead. “That’s it, Dragon. Wake up and talk to me.”

“Please…” Draco breathed. “P-please, no more…”

The words went through Harry like a dull blade. Relief turned to horror, and he clutched Draco tightly to his chest, whispering, “No, shh, it’s okay.”

“What do you… w-want me to s…”

“Nothing. Nothing.” Harry began to rock. “You don’t have to say a thing. Shh…”

“Harry?” He looked up to see Ron gazing at him through the bars, his eyes bright with tears. “You’d better get him to St. Mungo’s.”

“Yeah.” Bundling the loose robes around Draco’s naked body, Harry cradled it in his arms and cast a charm to lighten it. Then he climbed to his feet. “I need the warrant to get through the wards.”

“Take it,” Ron said. "I'll manage without."

“I’m sorry to leave you with this mess, but…

“Don’t worry about me.”

“You’ll have to lock the place down. Get Neville and Goldstein to help you. Maybe Cho and her partner. But don’t let anyone off this rock ’til you’ve found out who’s involved. And go to Kingsley if you need anything, not to Robards!”

“Harry, I’ve got this. _Go!_ ”

Harry nodded once, his eyes burning with grateful tears. He gave Ron a look that said everything he didn’t have time to say aloud, then sidled out of the cell and strode off down the passage with his fragile burden cradled in his arms.

**_To be continued…_**


	3. The Wages of Sin: Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the new and improved version of this chapter, see _The Wages of Sin_ , Chapter 12.

**Chapter 12: _Behind the Wall of Sleep_**

* * *

_The Daily Prophet Editorial Column_

**_SHACKLEBOLT LOSING HIS GRIP?  
_ ** _—by Barnabas Cuffe_

_…The wizarding public who elected Kingsley Shacklebolt to his position of power and influence have to ask if we’ve been bamboozled. Shacklebolt has built his political career on promises of transparency, integrity, justice and an end to corruption in High Places. But at a time of crisis, when a brutal criminal roamed our streets and attacked with impunity, it took a public protest on his very doorstep to force him into action…_

_…Even now, with the Memory Thief in Auror custody, we get no reports of confessions or charges filed. Instead we hear that the Ministry is pursuing criminal charges against a respected reporter for daring to print the truth about those close to the Minister…_

_…The latest word from the Ministry is that Rita Skeeter and Clive Prewett, under-secretary to the under-secretary to the Head of the Special Commission on War Crimes and Reparations, will both serve time in Azkaban for theft, receiving stolen goods, and violating a binding Magical contract._

_These are serious crimes, no doubt, but where is Draco Malfoy—the man targeted by Prewett’s supposed theft and Skeeter’s articles—in all of this? Why are Skeeter and Prewett being rushed to trial, while Malfoy apparently lives in comfort on the Ministry’s Knut, waiting for Shacklebolt to decide what to do with him? Is murder now a lesser crime than speaking Truth to Power? Or is Shacklebolt so afraid of Harry Potter that he won’t dare to move against his jailbird husband?…_

* * *

_The Quibbler_

**_SKEETER TO DO FIVE YEARS_ **

_Notorious yellow journalist Rita Skeeter was sentenced yesterday for her role in the theft of evidence from the Special Commission on War Crimes and Reparations. Skeeter pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods and violating a Magical contract. She was sentenced to three years in Azkaban for these crimes and to an additional two years for failing to register with the Improper Use of Magic Office as an Animagus._

_The DMLE is not saying who told them that Skeeter is an Animagus, nor are they revealing her animal form. But the Quibbler was able to confirm through an unimpeachable source that Skeeter’s Animagus form is a beetle, which seems entirely suitable to those of us who know her. According to our source, Skeeter has been using her transformative powers to spy on—or “bug”, to borrow a Muggle term—unsuspecting witches and wizards, insinuate herself into private conversations, and glean material for her hurtful, truth-twisting prose. We cannot be sorry that her wings are finally clipped!_

* * *

He was frightened. In pain. So, so tired.

He wanted to hide deep in the darkness, but the noises and lights wouldn’t let him. They battered at his skull, seared his eyes even through his closed lids, dragged at his consciousness with cruel talons until his mind ran with blood like his body. He tried speaking to them, asking them to leave him alone, but they didn’t hear. He tried pushing them away, but his arms wouldn’t move.

He was trapped.

Voices flew around him. Hands and magic brushed his skin. Then they were pulling at him, prodding him, splitting him open like rotten fruit to peer into his most private and damaged places. He howled a protest that never passed his lips. Sobbed and begged for mercy, though he knew by now that mercy would never be his.

He was a lost and abandoned creature. Good only for use and abuse. Pain and degradation. Cold and death.

 _Please!_ he wept when the hands took hold of him again and the magic plunged into him. _Please, no! No more!_

Then, still more desperately, _Harry, please! Find me! Make it stop! Help me, Harry, please! Harry, Harry…_

_* * *_

“What are you doing? Why is he twitching like that?” Harry fretted, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other and wringing his hands at his own helplessness.

“It’s perfectly normal,” a nurse said, as she pushed past him with a phial of potion in one hand and her wand in the other.

“He’s _in pain!_ ”

“He’s unconscious. He can’t feel anything.”

Harry tried to get closer to the stretcher where his husband lay, but too many green-clad bodies blocked his way. He watched a healer pull Draco’s arm out to one side and probe at the hideous bruise painting his ribs. The injured man shuddered at his touch, trying to draw away, and his breathing hitched.

“Stop that! You’re hurting him!”

The head healer was peering under the sheet that covered Draco from the waist down, doing something with his wand that Harry didn’t want to contemplate. He looked up at Harry’s outburst, frowning.

“That’s enough, Mr. Potter. You need to wait outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Trevor, would you escort him out to the waiting area?”

Another healer—younger than the first, with a round face and curly hair that reminded Harry forcibly of the Creevey brothers—stepped up to Harry’s side and caught his arm.

“Come along, sir,” he said kindly. “You can wait in Reception. Or get yourself a sandwich up in the tearoom. We’ll let you know when the prisoner is ready to…”

“ _Prisoner!_ ” Harry reared back, pulling sharply away from the healer and rounded on him. “He’s not a prisoner, he’s my _husband!_ His name is Draco Potter, and he’s my _husband!_ ”

Taking advantage of the young man’s moment of surprise, Harry shoved roughly past him and up to the stretcher, reaching Draco’s side at last.

“Dragon?”

The injured man gave no sign that he heard, but when Harry rested a hand on his head, his breath hitched in alarm.

“Shh. It’s me.” He lifted Draco’s hand and clasped the cold, bloodstained fingers. “It’s Harry. You’re all right, love. You’re safe.”

Draco rolled his head away and whimpered softly through split, swollen, blood-rimmed lips.

“Shh.” Harry kissed his fingertips. “Don’t be scared.”

A hand caught Harry’s arm, and he turned to find Trevor at his side again. “Please, sir. You’re not helping him by getting in our way.”

“He’s still so cold. Can’t you warm him up?”

“We’ll take care of it, I promise. Just wait outside. Give us room to work.”

“I can’t leave him alone in here.”

“He won’t know the difference. Honestly. When he wakes up, he won’t remember any of this.”

Trevor tugged Harry gently but irresistibly away from the stretcher, speaking in a soothing tone all the way.

“Come with me, Mr. Potter. Just out here. Come on.”

Something about that voice—caring and kind and unflappable—sucked the fight out of Harry. Perhaps it was a healer’s trick to manage distraught family members. Perhaps Harry was simply too exhausted and terrified and gutted by grief to resist. Whatever the truth of it, he let Trevor guide him out of the curtained bay, across the expanse of the emergency treatment room, and through the main doorway to the corridor beyond.

They stopped in the middle of the hallway and Harry looked around helplessly.

What was he supposed to do now? Where was he supposed to go?

He couldn’t sit in the reception area, under the eyes of the Welcome Witch and a constant stream of ill, injured and ensorcelled patients. If he showed his face out there, it would take exactly two seconds for someone to recognize him and maybe another thirty before the news of his presence spread beyond the hospital. Then the Press would be on him like a case of Dragon Pox.

He couldn’t go all the way up to the tearoom on the top floor. That would put too much distance between him and Draco and cost precious minutes if something happened to him. Or even if he was waking up and Harry needed to get to him. No, he had to stay close.

He had to stay beside him.

Turning a bleak, pleading look on the healer, he said, “Let me go back in, please. I promise I’ll stay out of the way.”

Trevor shook his head. “As soon as we have him stabilized and things quiet down in there, I’ll come fetch you. You’ll be with him when he wakes up. That’s what matters.”

Harry regarded him for a long minute, trying to read his thoughts through his calm, boyish face. The man was impenetrable. Another healer trick.

“Is he dying?” Harry rasped out. “Is that why you’re throwing me out? Draco’s dying and you don’t want me to watch?”

“No, he’s not dying.” Harry sagged in sudden relief, stumbling back against the wall and putting a shaking hand up to cover his eyes. “He’s in bad shape, but none of his injuries are life-threatening.”

“Fuck,” Harry breathed. He pushed up his glasses, pressed the heels of his hands to his eyelids to hold back sudden tears.

“Just hang in there, Mr. Potter.” Trevor clasped his shoulder for a moment, then turned back to the wide doorway. “Go sit down. Try not to worry. You got him here in time.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

As the young healer disappeared back into the controlled chaos of the emergency room, Harry let his legs collapse and his body slide down to sit on the floor, huddled at the base of the wall. His eyes fixed unwaveringly on the bright room beyond the doorway. The room where Draco lay and Harry was not allowed to go.

He could do nothing now but wait.

*** *** ***

He was dreaming.

Sometimes the dreams were beautiful. Visions of Harry. Lying close to him in their secret room, touching and laughing and basking in their shared warmth. Green eyes glowing from inches away.

Sometimes they were terrible. Cold and hunger and bruising stone. Rough, greedy hands on his flesh. Bodies pressed against his, sweating and stinking. Cocks pounding into him. Fenrir Greyback’s laughter mocking his screams.

And sometimes voices reached him from beyond sleep, calling to him, tempting him back to consciousness. He fled from them, whimpering in fear, dreading the reality that would make the horrors of his dreams seem mild in comparison. Until he heard the voice he longed for. The one that drove away the cold and the fear and stopped the shivering in his limbs.

Draco stilled at the sound of it. Listened. Calmed. Then drew himself into a protective ball, curled around the precious warmth that gathered at his core to keep it close. Keep it safe. And let himself fall down, down, ever deeper into a darkness so profound that no dream could find him there. But Harry went with him.

Harry would never leave him.

* * *

Harry watched Draco roll onto his side and huddle beneath the blankets, his body going limp as the nightmare passed. He stroked the tumbled hair back from the sleeping man’s face and rested his lips against his forehead, humming soft, soothing noises that seemed to drain the last of the panic from him. Draco sighed and snuggled a little deeper into the warmth of blankets and spells.

“Shh,” Harry whispered, lips brushing his skin as they moved, hand stroking gently. “You’re all right, love. Go back to sleep. That’s it.”

“That was a bad one.”

Harry looked up to see Ron slumped wearily in a chair on the other side of the bed. He was dressed in his Auror robes, and they were crumpled with hours of hard wear. A smudge of dirt marked his nose. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, lost in shadows.

“It’s passing.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to wake him up when he’s having a nightmare?”

“He needs to dream. It’s how his mind heals after all those days without sleep. And the nightmares don’t last.” Harry gazed down at his husband’s now-peaceful face, his own softening into doting fondness. “He knows I won’t let anything hurt him.”

“Can’t argue with you there. I could do with a few dreams, myself, to clear the rubbish out of my head.” Ron yawned hugely and let his head fall back. “ _Fuck_ , I’m tired!”

“What time is it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Shouldn’t you go home and get some sleep?”

“I could say the same thing to you, mate.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Harry folded his free arm on the mattress and slumped forward to prop his chin on it. His other hand continued to comb through Draco’s hair and brush light, loving touches to his face. Ron settled back in his chair and closed his eyes. The room fell into a weary silence that lasted for several minutes, only broken when Ron began to snore.

The door opened. Molly Weasley came through it, guiding a tray loaded with cups and plates in ahead of her. The sound of the door shutting startled Ron awake.

“Huh? What?” he mumbled. “Oh, it’s you, Mum.”

“Time for a snack, my dears.”

Harry straightened his back and stretched, his vertebrae popping. “Oh, Merlin! Is that tea I smell?”

“Sandwiches and biscuits and tea.” She settled the tray on the table to Harry’s left, then offered him a cup balanced on a saucer. “Get that into you, Harry. It will warm you up.”

Only in the wizarding world would hospital tea come in a china cup, Harry reflected. Then again, only in the wizarding world would a hospital room be lit by candles floating in crystal bubbles or be paneled in dark wainscoting. But it was its anachronisms that made St. Mungo’s so comforting to a boy raised on a diet of Muggle medical dramas. And after years spent as an Auror, languishing in beds and rooms just like this one due to his own recklessness, Harry knew just how skilled the healers in this quaint Victorian setting really were.

He accepted the cup with fervent thanks and took a large swallow of the mahogany brew. It burned down his throat, into his stomach, and drew a sigh of rapt appreciation from him.

Tea fixed everything.

Or nearly everything, he amended, his gaze shifting to the man in the bed.

“We’ll save a cup for him,” Mrs. Weasley said comfortably, following Harry’s gaze and reading his mind with ease, “and a nice cheese and tomato sandwich. Does he like cheese and tomato?”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “Pâté is his favorite, but I don’t expect they have that in the hospital tearoom.”

“Nothing up to a Malfoy’s standard, no,” she replied, chuckling.

Harry watched, faintly bemused, as she bustled about the room, carrying a plate over to Ron, then collecting another for herself. He was absurdly happy to have her here, in spite of the debacle at Christmas and the tension that had lingered in the weeks since. It had taken him all of half a second to forget their differences when he saw her standing in the doorway at Ron’s side. One look at her kind, motherly face and hopeful smile, the hint of tears glinting in her eyes, had wiped it all away.

Whatever harsh words might have passed between them, she was still Molly Weasley. The closest thing to a mother he had ever known. The most wonderful woman alive. He loved her and he needed her. He and Draco both did.

“I saw Kingsley Shacklebolt and Gawain Robards upstairs,” she said, as she stirred milk into her tea.

Harry grimaced. “What’re they doing here?”

“Hoping to speak to you, I gather.”

“Well, they can wait.” He touched Draco’s hair again, just to anchor himself, then took another sip of tea. “Robards is the last person I want to see right now.”

“Could be about the case,” Ron reminded him.

“So what if it is? I handed them their bleeding case, all but gift-wrapped, and they can do the rest.” Then a new thought occurred to him. “They didn’t say anything about Narcissa, did they?”

Molly looked mildly surprised at that. “What about her?”

“Where she is. Or more to the point, why she isn’t _here_. I hope Kingsley didn’t send her back to France already.”

“No, she’s at Grimmauld Place,” Ron cut in, “babysitting that ruddy elf. Narcissa and Hermione, both.”

“Couldn’t they get someone else to do that?”

“Not someone Lissy trusts.”

“I suppose. Still,” Harry frowned discontentedly, “she should be here with Draco.”

“I’m sure she would be, if she could,” Molly said soothingly. “Even a woman as cold as Narcissa Malfoy wouldn’t abandon her son at a time like this.”

“She’s not cold,” Harry protested, once more slumped forward with his chin on his arm and his face only a few inches from Draco’s, “not really. And she’d do anything for Draco.”

“Of course she would. I didn’t mean any offense, dear.”

“I know.” Harry began toying with the long strands of Draco’s hair again. “But Draco is family now, which means his mother is, too. And she’s really not a bad sort, if you can overlook the fact that she was married to an utter git like Lucius for all those years.”

“I’ll do my best to overlook it and get to know her properly.”

Harry twisted his head to the side, caught her eye, and smiled his gratitude.

“It’s probably better if she doesn’t show her face around here, anyway,” he mused, reverting to his original concern. “I’ll let her know when I’ve got Draco home, and she can visit him there.”

“Oh, surely you won’t be taking him back to that lonely cottage!” Molly exclaimed.

“It’s the safest place for him. You know what will happen when word gets out that he’s been released from Azkaban. The Press will go into a feeding frenzy!”

“So, ignore it like you always do,” Ron said reasonably. “Besides, Skeeter’s under arrest.”

“She’s not the only journo who wants to take a bite out of him. And what about all those people who were protesting just a few days ago? What will they do when they find out that the evil Dark wizard who’s been stealing memories and murdering people is a free man? And worse, he’s lying helpless in St. Mungo’s where pretty much anyone can get to him?” Harry shook his head stubbornly. “He’s too vulnerable here. I want him inside my wards, where no one can touch him, before the news hits the papers tomorrow.”

“ _Tomorrow?!_ ” Ron’s worried frown looked remarkably like his mother’s. “Are you mental?! Harry, he almost _died!_ ”

“I know that, but I also know that what he needs now is rest and quiet to finish healing on his own. He can get that anywhere.”

“Not in that cottage, with only you to look after him,” Molly said severely.

“I can manage.”

“Nonsense.”

“He’s not staying here! Healer Rasgotra agrees that he’ll do better someplace protected and familiar, and he’s agreed to discharge him just as soon as he’s strong enough to make the trip. Probably later tonight!”

“Be that as it may,” Molly said, “you’re not taking him to that cottage. You’re bringing him to the Burrow.”

Harry gaped at her for a moment, completely taken aback, then spluttered, “What?”

“The Burrow. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It’s not… I mean… I couldn’t!”

“Certainly you can. Think about it, dear. How will you manage, all alone in Gloucestershire in Winter, with your wards locked down so no one can reach you in an emergency? And what will you do if you have to leave on Ministry business? Who will look after Draco while you’re gone?”

“Kreacher will help,” Harry offered.

“That miserable house-elf is no substitute for family,” Molly retorted. “And that’s what you have at the Burrow. Family.”

“But… the wards…”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re not the only wizard in Britain who can cast decent wards, young man! Ours were good enough to protect you from Lord Voldemort, so I think they’ll do to keep out a few reporters! In fact, I’ll pop home now and have Arthur get to work on them.” She got to her feet and shook out her robes purposefully. “I’ll be back before you hear from Draco’s healer.”

“Molly, you don’t have to do this,” Harry said seriously. “I know you don’t want a Malfoy in your home.”

“He’s not a Malfoy anymore, is he?” She gave him a severe look, then broke out in a twinkling smile. “After raising seven of my own, I think I can handle one Malfoy-turned-Potter. He can’t possibly be any worse a patient than Fred or George!”

“That’s not it. I… I don’t want you to feel obligated…”

“ _Pfft!_ Don’t be silly. Can I do anything for you boys while I’m out?”

Harry and Ron both shook their heads numbly, then watched as Molly marched out the door, a woman on a mission.

*** *** ***

He was deeply asleep and content to stay that way. He didn’t feel familiar arms scooping him up from his warm nest of blankets and spells, or the silvery folds of an invisibility cloak falling over him. He simply curled up against a broad chest, protected by a presence and a magic that he trusted implicitly, and let them bear him away.

The trip through long, dim, quiet corridors did not touch him. The ride down in the lift, the whispers exchanged over his head did not penetrate his healing sleep. Harry was with him. Nothing could harm him. He was safe.

Then a great fist took hold of him and squeezed.

Agony flooded him. His ribs creaked and cracked, splintering under the remorseless pressure. The air rushed out of his lungs, leaving him crushed and empty and starving for oxygen.

He screamed, but no sound left his lips. He struggled to escape, but his body would not obey him. He cried out for Harry, hoping that this time—by some miracle—his love would hear him.

No voice came to him out of the darkness.

No comforting hands.

No help.

He was dying and Harry had not heard him.

* * *

Even as he apparated away from St. Mungo’s with Draco, Harry realized his mistake. He felt the injured man stiffen in his arms, felt his breathing falter, and remembered too late his broken ribs. His brutalized body. All those wounds that had barely begun to heal.

They landed on the hearthrug in the living room at the Burrow. No sooner had his feet hit the floor than Harry dropped to his knees, easing Draco down to sit on the rug while he cradled his torso against his own chest. He was in obvious distress, breathing in agonized gasps, grunting with pain every time his ribcage moved.

“Oh, Dragon, I’m sorry.” Harry tucked Draco’s head into the hollow of his shoulder and stroked his hair, murmuring, “It’s all right, love, we’re done. Just breathe.”

Arthur came rushing up to them, bending down to frown in concern at the man in Harry’s arms. “What’s wrong, my boy?”

“I shouldn’t have apparated with him,” Harry said grimly. “I forgot about his ribs. Do you think it could have broken them again?”

“I shouldn’t think so. I know it feels as if you’re being crushed to death, but there’s no actual force involved. And I’ve never heard of anyone being injured while apparating, other than when they’re splinched, of course…”

The loud _crack_ of Molly apparating into the room interrupted his rambling. He turned to smile genially at his wife and said, “Just in time, my dear. Do we have any Skele-Gro on hand?”

“What in Merlin’s name would we need that for?” She bustled over to the two men on the floor, looking cross and worried in equal measure. “What trouble could you boys possibly have gotten into apparating from St. Mungo’s to here?”

“I’m afraid Draco injured his ribs again.”

“Hmm.” She leaned closer to Draco, gently brushing the hair back from his face. “He does look peaky. Well, get him up to bed and I’ll bring some potions to make him comfortable. Arthur will seal the wards, so we don’t have to worry about being followed.”

Harry scooped Draco up in his arms again, with the help of a surreptitious spell to make him lighter and avoid jarring his injured body.

“Where do you want him? Ron’s room? That’s a bit of a climb…”

“Gracious, no! Take him to our bedroom. It’s just one flight up, with a nice big bed and an attached loo…”

“I couldn’t push you out of your own room,” Harry protested, flushing.

“Nonsense. You want Draco to be comfortable, don’t you?” Before Harry could argue any further, she caught his arm and shoved him toward the doorway. “Hurry, now. Get that poor boy to bed!”

The master bedroom was, like every other room in that ramshackle warren of a house, small and shabby and erratic, with funny little nooks and crannies in the walls that held a random collection of family knick-knacks. But it was clean and warm, with a healthy fire burning on the hearth, and the bed was piled with quilts worn soft and smooth with age.

Harry crossed to the bed in a few strides and settled Draco gently onto the mattress. He looked better at once, his body relaxing into the warmth and softness, his head sinking into the fat pillow. Harry pulled the thick quilts up to his chin and brushed the hair back from his face.

“You’re home now, love. You can rest easy.”

Molly appeared in the doorway with a tray in her hands. Padding up to the bed and stopping beside Harry, she took a good look at her patient.

“Hm. Not the time for potions, I think. Best to just let him sleep.”

Harry nodded wearily, and Molly shot him a narrow look.

“The same goes for you, young man. When was the last time you closed your eyes?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Then just you climb into that bed with Draco and get a proper night’s sleep.”

“I wish I could, but I have to be awake if he needs anything.”

“Just what do you imagine he’s going to need in his condition? Besides, that’s what Arthur and I are here for.”

She patted his shoulder, pushing down to sit on the edge of the mattress as she did so. He was so wrung out and weak that his legs folded at the first touch. Sitting down, he had to look up to meet her kind, worried eyes. He smiled wanly at her.

“Thanks, Molly. For everything.”

“Oh, hush!” She waved away his gratitude, patted him again, and turned for the door. “I’ve set a charm so all you have to do is call my name and I’ll hear. Anything else you say will be strictly between you and your husband.”

She paused in the doorway to smile at him, then bustled away.

When she was gone, Harry started stripping off his clothes. He fumbled with buttons and zips, clumsy in his exhaustion, but the promise of a soft bed and Draco sleeping beside him kept him at it until he’d shed the last piece of clothing. Dropping his sock on the floor, he crawled beneath the covers and burrowed into a down pillow.

“Good night, Dragon,” he mumbled.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he tumbled into sleep.

*** *** ***

_Detention in the Potions dungeon. Snape’s furious face glaring from the doorway, ordering, “Clean every drop! And no magic! I’ll be back in two hours to check on your progress, and I had better be impressed, unless you want to spend every Friday evening mopping up after your incompetent classmates!”_

He was dreaming again. His favorite dream. The one where Harry Potter first touched him…

_The door slamming. Leaving him alone with a mass of green goo splashed over tables and floors._

_Alone with Potter._

_Green eyes glaring at him across a begrimed table. Pale cheeks flushed with anger._

_“Bloody Snape! It wasn’t our fault Seamus’ cauldron exploded!”_

_“Why do you let him get to you, Potter?”_

_“He’s a right foul git and a rubbish teacher!”_

_“He just knows how to wind you up. And he enjoys watching you fly into a rage.”_

_“He’s not the only one.” The green eyes fastened on him now, seeing only him, stripping away his mask and destroying his defenses. “Don’t you ever get tired of winding me up, Malfoy?”_

_“Why would I, when I do it so well?” He says the words because he knows it’s expected. It’s their ritual. But he’s thinking, ‘_ How else would I get your attention, Potter?’

_And maybe Potter hears him. Understands. Because the next words out of his mouth are the answer he has never dared to ask for._

_“You know you don’t have to torment me to get my attention. You only have to exist.”_

_“Enamored of the thing you can never have?”_

_“Never?” Potter is leaning over the table, closer and closer, almost touching him. “Never is a long time.”_

_Then Potter’s lips are on his and he’s forgotten how to breathe._

_It’s gentle and hesitant and incredibly hot. It’s every fantasy he’s ever had, compressed down into that moment. That place where their bodies touch. That wetness on his lips when Potter’s tongue slips out to caress them. Then his lips are opening and that tongue is between them and his own is straining to meet it and he doesn’t know which way is up or where his hands belong or how all the blood in his body got down to his cock so fast._

_Potter doesn’t really know how to kiss, but then, neither does he so it’s all right. Quidditch-callused hands grab at his shoulders, dragging him half across the desk, clutching and pulling at his hair, while lips crash into his and a tongue searches his mouth._

_He whimpers. He can’t help it. His cock is so hard it hurts and his brain is starved for oxygen. He’s dizzy and hot and aching and now… now he’s wet. That thing Potter does with his teeth and his tongue makes him so hungry that his cock is leaking._

_Potter is around the desk now, right up close against him, body pressing against his and something magnificently hard in his pants. He pulls his mouth away to mutter, “I’ve waited years to do that.”_

_“What took you so long? I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave.”_

_There it is. The snark. The instinctive antagonism that defines and protects them. He’s dredged it up, somehow, even when all he really wants is to tear his clothes off and spread himself out under Harry Fucking Potter._

_“Brave, not suicidal.”_

_“I don’t want your life, Potter.” Here it is. His chance to say it and cross the gulf between them, once and for all. “Just you.”_

_Then Potter is on him, kissing him again, pushing him back against the desk and fumbling with his robes. He’s ready for this. So ready. So willing to lift and spread his knees, to hook his legs around the other boy and pull him in…_

_But the kiss is wrong—rough, bruising, sour-tasting. The teeth that nip at him tear his lips, filling his mouth with blood. The hands that find his bare skin paw at it, nails catching and scrabbling._

_He whimpers, trapped somewhere between fear and overwhelming need._

_He pulls back, seeking a moment of clear air, and gasps, “What about Snape?”_

_Potter laughs, but the sound is harsh and grating. “He can watch. Maybe take a turn.”_

_His eyes snap open to gaze up at the face he has adored as long as he can remember. Green eyes gaze back at him—fierce and full of heat—but the face that holds them is nearly swallowed by filthy, matted hair that seems to crawl up its cheeks. The mouth stretches in a smile, sores at its corners cracking and oozing, to reveal jagged teeth._

_Horror floods him. Terror. Sickness. He twists away from the vision, screaming a protest, only to feel a clawed hand twisting in his long hair. Pulling him away from the desk. Flinging him forward to sprawl on stone._

_“On your knees, boy, and open wide!”_

Draco awoke with a start, bolting upright, shaking and sweating in panic. Pain spiked between his ribs, and he slumped sideways onto the mattress, biting his lip to stifle his gasps. Then he felt something move in the darkness beside him, and he instinctively rolled away from it, tumbling off the side of the bed in a tangle of bedclothes and flailing limbs.

* * *

The unmistakable sound of someone in pain brought Harry instantly awake. He lay still for a moment, blinking to bring his eyes into focus, trying to remember where he was. Then he reached for the man who was supposed to be beside him in bed. He wasn’t.

“Draco?” He rolled over and pushed himself up on one arm. “Are you all right?”

The thud of a body hitting the floor was followed by a grunt of pain. Harry scrambled toward the sound, hands out to catch the shadowy figure now struggling up beside the bed.

“Draco!”

“Nngh! No!”

Harry was off the bed in a flash, bending over him, pulling him to his feet. “It’s okay! You’re okay!”

Draco was trembling and sobbing, fighting to free himself of Harry’s grasp but unable to stand without his support. He managed to tear his arms out of Harry’s fingers, then staggered and started to fall. Harry caught him in his arms and gathered him up against his chest, gritting his teeth in agony when Draco cried, “Please, no! I can’t! _Please!_ ”

“Draco, it’s all right! Listen to me! Listen” He sank down on the edge of the mattress, pulling Draco onto his lap, then clasped his head between his hands to hold it still. “It’s me, love, Harry. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No, no, no, no,” Draco sobbed.

“Yes, it’s me. Look.” He cast a wandless _Lumos,_ filling the room with soft, silvery wandlight. “Look at me, love.”

Draco uttered a low whimper of fear that twisted Harry’s heart in his chest, but his lashes twitched up in obedience to his husband’s trusted voice. His eyes were huge and unnaturally bright, set as they were in purple bruise-shadows and glazed with tears. They fixed on Harry’s face, widening still further in disbelief. Then they squeezed shut again, sending tears streaking down his face.

“Harry.” He crumpled forward, burying his face in the curve of Harry’s neck. “Harry.”

“Yes. Shh.” Harry began to pet his back and hair, rocking gently, murmuring soothing noises to him, while Draco shook with sobs. “Okay, okay… Shh…”

“Where am I?” Draco whispered, his words muffled by Harry’s collar. “How did I get here?”

“You’re at the Burrow, and I brought you.”

“I was in a cell… in Azkaban… with R-rabastan and Carrow…”

“Not anymore. You’re free and you’re safe and I’m going to keep you that way.”

“ _Harr-rry!_ ” he moaned.

“Hush! Don’t, love, please.” He pulled Draco still closer and felt him shaking. “You need to stay warm,” he chided softly. “Get back in bed, and we can…”

“No!” Draco jerked upright and shoved at Harry’s chest, pushing himself off his lap. “Not that!”

“Hey!” Harry cried, startled by his sudden move. He made a snatch for Draco’s arm and managed to catch it just before he dropped to the floor.

“I can’t, I can’t!” Draco wailed in misery, his entire body wracked by sobs.

“You don’t have to!”

“Don’t make me! Not again!”

“I won’t! _Draco!_ ”

This last was wrenched out of him as Draco once more tore free of his clasp and once more lost his footing. Harry bounded up, catching him and scooping him up in his arms like an overgrown child. Then he started for the door.

“Where are you taking me?” Draco whispered, his face once more hidden in Harry’s neck and his tears wetting the other man’s collar.

“Not to a bed, I promise. Just trust me, Dragon. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Harry.”

The name was no more than a breath against his skin, but it had all the trust Harry could ask for crammed into it. All the trust Draco had left in him. Harry blinked back his own tears and carried his husband out of the room in search of a place where he could sleep in peace.

*** *** ***

The next time he awoke, it was to the soft murmur of voices. He drifted slowly up out of the darkness, untroubled by ugly dreams or pricks of fear, wrapped in warmth and contentment and a deep feeling of security.

Words took shape. He began to understand what he was hearing.

“…if you’re sure, dear, but you know you’re welcome to stay in our room. You aren’t putting us out.”

“We’re good here. Draco doesn’t do well with beds.”

Drawn by the sound of his own name, he yawned and twisted onto his side, fetching up with his nose buried in fabric. Musty, slightly rank fabric, with a familiar scent to it that formed a pool of warmth in his chest.

It smelled like Harry.

At his movement, the voices broke off. Then one of them said, “If he’s waking up, I’d better see about breakfast. I expect you’re both hungry.”

“Thanks, Molly.”

That one came from right against him, rumbling comfortably by his ear. He opened his eyes, blinked to bring them into focus, and found himself staring at a very wrinkled and grubby t-shirt. A hand clasped the back of his head, then smoothed his hair.

“Hey,” the comforting voice said, “welcome back.”

He turned his head to look up at its source. Green eyes smiled down at him. He tried to smile back, but his face was stiff and sore, his muscles uncooperative. The most he could manage was a twitch of his lips that pulled uncomfortably at the fresh scars that thickened them.

“Harry.”

Even his voice sounded stiff. As if he hadn’t used it in a very long time. Or had only used it for screaming.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I was scraped off the bottom of Hagrid’s boot.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Draco stared up at him for another long moment, taking in the details of his face. The weariness. The lines of pain and worry. The dark scruff of beard and the hollows beneath his eyes. He looked so incredibly tired. But in spite of that, his eyes were alight with happiness and his lips quirked up in the smile Draco remembered so well and loved to kiss away so much. In spite of everything, he was still Harry.

“Are you real?” he finally rasped out.

That lovely smile widened and the already brilliant eyes brightened with tears. “I’d kiss you to prove it, but I can’t reach you down there. I’m not that flexible.”

Draco digested that, only now absorbing the fact that he was lying with his head in Harry’s lap. That wouldn’t do. Not if he wanted to prove his husband’s reality. Slowly and carefully, all too aware of the weakness and pain in every part of his body, he levered himself up on his hands and looked around.

He was sitting on a sagging sofa in a shabby, comfortable room. A fire burned on the hearth. Winter sunlight poured through the windows. A thick layer of old quilts covered his legs and lay around his waist, where they’d fallen as he straightened up. And the sound of pots clattering, together with the smell of frying sausages, carried down the hallway from a distant kitchen.

The Burrow.

Draco turned to face the man sitting at one end of the sofa. “How did I get here?”

“I brought you here from St. Mungo’s.” Harry cocked his head curiously. “Do you really not remember anything?”

“I…” He broke off and frowned. “I remember dreaming about you…”

“It wasn’t a dream.” Harry reached over to stroke and clasp his arm. Draco looked down to see that he was dressed in hospital pajamas. Harry’s hand looked brown and strong and very real against the white flannel. “I was here with you all night. You woke up once, but you weren’t really yourself.”

“There was a bed. I thought it meant…” He shuddered.

Harry nodded. His hand moved up and down Draco’s arm soothingly.

“You carried me out here?”

Another nod. Another comforting stroke of his hand. “You slept better, after we moved to the sofa.”

“And the things you said to me.” He swallowed painfully, feeling tears gather in his eyes. “That I’m free and I’m safe. That I don’t h-have to go back. They were true?”

“They were true.”

The tears slipped through his lashes and down his face. “Harry,” he whispered.

“Shh.”

On that soft whisper, Harry leaned forward to kiss him. Their lips touched, hesitantly at first, then more firmly, then open-mouthed and hungry. In the middle of the kiss, Harry wrapped both arms around Draco and pulled him across his lap. Draco leaned willingly into his chest and, when Harry finally broke the embrace, let his head fall onto the taller man’s shoulder.

“What do you think?” Harry whispered into his hair. “Am I real?”

“Fuck. Harry.” He slipped his arms around Harry’s waist, holding on as tightly as his weakened state would allow. “If you’re not—if this is a trick or a dream—please just kill me and be done with it. I can’t go back.”

“You won’t.” Harry began to stroke his hair again, in between kisses dropped on the top of his head. “You’re never going back there and you’re never leaving me. You’re safe, Dragon. You’re home. And I’m never letting you go again.”

Overcome by relief and gratitude and a terrible, aching hope, Draco let the last of his defenses fall, curled up in his husband’s arms, and wept.

**_To be continued…_**


	4. The Wages of Sin: Chapter 7 (Partial)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is one scene from a chapter in _The Wages of Sin_. I made changes to only this one scene, so I didn't think it was helpful to repost the entire chapter here.
> 
> For the complete chapter with the new and improved version of this scene, see _The Wages of Sin, **Chapter 7: Interlude: Tea with Friends and Other Adventures.**_

**Chapter 7: _Interlude: Tea With Friends and Other Adventures_**

They stayed for another hour, talking about anything and everything, until Flitwick pointed out that the Hogwarts professors were due back up in the Great Hall for supper. That signaled the end of the party. Everyone downed the last of their drinks and got up to leave.

Warmed by two glasses of mead and an afternoon of unprecedented belonging, Draco was feeling almost euphoric as he shook hands all around and let Pomfrey kiss his cheek again. Hagrid enveloped him in another rib-crushing hug, told him not to be a stranger, and plowed a wide path through the taproom to the door. Harry and Draco hurried in his wake, allowing his massive presence to shield them from any lingering hostility in the room. Then they were outside in the darkness, knee-deep in snow, huddled together under Harry’s invisibility cloak.

Draco wrapped both arms around Harry’s waist and buried his nose in the collar of his coat, inhaling his scent, along with the odors of butterbeer, woodsmoke and damp wool. It was every bit as intoxicating as oak-matured mead and far more seductive. His body flooded with heat. His cock stiffened.

“You’re in a good mood,” Harry murmured in his ear, rocking his hips to rub his own growing erection against Draco’s hip. “If I’d known what was going on in those fabulous jeans, I’d have taken you home and fucked you senseless hours ago.”

“Hmm.”

Draco slid his hands down to clasp Harry’s bum and pull their loins more tightly together. The next lift of Harry’s hips sent pleasure sparking along his spine and coiling in his belly. It dragged a soft moan from him.

Tilting his head back, he studied his husband’s face in the firelight spilling out of the pub. “Is this how it feels to be you, Harry?” he murmured. “To know you’re welcome everywhere? _Wanted_ everywhere?”

Harry’s smile turned quizzical, then he bent to kiss Draco’s upturned lips softly. “No,” he breathed. “This is how it feels to be _you_.”

Draco rose onto his toes, pressing their mouths together again, drinking in the heady taste of passion in his husband’s kiss. “Maybe. Tonight. With you.” He plunged his tongue into Harry’s mouth, claiming him, before pulling back slightly and adding, “Maybe, tonight, I _am_ you.”

Abruptly, without waiting for Harry to take the lead, he turned on the spot and apparated them both away.

They landed in the icy blackness of their bedroom. Draco stripped off the invisibility cloak and tossed it to the floor, while Harry lit the lamps and fire without bothering to draw his wand or look away from his husband’s face. In the sudden flare of light, Draco saw hunger, anticipation and wonder warring in his bottomless green eyes.

It was the look of a man about to be ravished. A man _aching_ to be ravished.

With a soft growl of warning, Draco grabbed the lapels of Harry’s coat and shoved him backward, onto the bed. Harry made no effort to catch himself, tumbling haphazardly down to sprawl across the mattress with his arms flung wide and one foot still on the floor, all the while gazing up at Draco with that incredible, enflaming look in his eyes.

Draco growled again, the sound rising unbidden in his throat, and crawled onto the bedto kneel between Harry’s spread legs, his hands braced on the mattress to either side of the other man’s head. His long hair spilled loose around them both, trailing on the eiderdown and forming a curtain as silvery, rare and beautiful as the cloak they had just discarded. Their eyes locked. Harry licked his lips, making them gleam wetly in the soft light.

“What are you going to do?” he whispered.

His voice sent a shiver of want through Draco’s body.

“What you would do,” he whispered back.

Harry lifted a hand to touch his face, almost reverently. “Don’t try to be me.” His voice was a soundless purr, a brush of velvet that lit Draco’s nerve endings on fire. “Just be you and take what you want.”

“I…” He broke off, swallowed, and tried again. “I want…”

The words wouldn’t come. He heard them in his head, felt them in his cock, but couldn’t get them out of his mouth.

Harry spoke them for him. “You want to fuck me.”

Sudden tears burned his eyes. “Is that what _you_ want?”

“Yes.” The word was firm, almost commanding, but even as he spoke it, Harry changed. He softened, stilled, his hands loosing their grip on the quilt and curling up helplessly, the gleam in his eyes going from fierce to pleading. And then he breathed, “Yes, _please_ …”

Draco had always adored Harry’s body. He never remembered a time when he didn’t want to touch it, explore it, enjoy it, pleasure it. Even as a child, when he had no idea what to do with another boy in his bed, he had seen those bony wrists poking out of Harry’s wide, black sleeves and longed to touch them. Fondle them. Press his lips to the blue veins pulsing beneath his sickly-pale skin. He had burned at the thought, flushed with shame and hot with desire.

That lovely, gawky, graceless body had taught him what he was.

The Harry lying spread-eagled on the bed while Draco stripped him naked, was no longer gawky and graceless. Gone were the bony wrists, the awkward limbs, the starved and sun-deprived look of a child raised in a cupboard. This Harry was strong and sure and powerful. Long-limbed, square-shouldered, hard-muscled. And still so beautiful that it hurt Draco to look at him.

Like staring at the sun.

As he peeled back layers of fabric, dragging his fingers over shivering, sweat-dampened skin, Draco marveled at the way the other man seemed to glow with magic. As if his body were full of it, lighting him from within. It gave his skin a golden cast in comparison to Draco’s porcelain-white coldness. It tasted hot and sweet on his tongue when he licked a stripe up the back of Harry’s thigh.

He licked up and up, finding the taut curve of one buttock and sucking lightly at it. Harry shifted under him, trying to lift his hips and uttering a panting moan. Draco pressed his hand to the tops of his thighs to hold him still, and Harry’s cries became more urgent.

“Oh, _fuck!_ Fuck, Draco… _please!_ ”

The desperation in his voice went through Draco like an electric shock, setting his nerves alight and bringing a pulse of wetness from his cock. He reached for his wand, lying ready beside him, and banished his own clothing in an instant. Then he bent to plant a kiss at the small of Harry’s back and raised his wand.

He knew how to do this. He’d done it to himself often enough for the enjoyment of others. He knew the spells he needed for cleansing and protection and to coat his fingers with lube. He knew how to circle the rim, coaxing it to relax, slicking it up, then ease in afingertip. How to read the jerk of muscles, the catch of breath, the lift and roll of hips. When to press in, when to pause. How to crook his finger, just so, to send a jolt of pleasure through a man’s body and make him push back, begging for more.

He got two fingers in. Then three. Harry was up on his knees, thighs spread wide, cock lying hot and thick and wet with hunger up his belly, fucking back onto Draco’s fingers and sobbing into a pillow. Draco fastened his lips to one buttock, sucking, then pushed his tongue in to lick around his own fingers and the flesh stretched so tight across them.

The taste, the smell, the noises Harry made were intoxicating. Like a hit of opium to his system, lifting him out of himself. He growled softly, worked his tongue in deeper, intent only on hearing that sob again. That high, hungry whine. That pleading for more and more and more.

He could make Harry come just like this… Take him, torment him, satisfy him, draw that beautiful, needy sound from his lips…

“Don’t… don’t make me come yet!” Harry panted, interrupting his heated thoughts.

Draco looked up, eyes bleared and only half-focused, to find Harry’s head twisted against the pillow and one lust-blown green eye fixed on him.

“Not ’til you fuck me!”

Sitting back on his heels once more, Draco eased his fingers carefully out of Harry’s body. “Turn over.”

With a breathless laugh, Harry rolled onto his back and pushed himself up on his elbows. Draco gazed intently at him—at his blown pupils, flushed cheeks, swollen lips—and saw nothing but eagerness. Longing. _Want_.

“Are you sure?” he asked, very softly.

Harry laughed again and bent his knees, opening himself shamelessly. “I’m sure!”

Keeping his eyes glued to Harry’s face, searching for any sign of doubt or resistance, Draco caught him behind the knees, pushing them up to his shoulders and holding them in place, then shifted forward until the head of his cock rested against his hole. He felt the ring of muscle pulse at his touch, clenching then loosening.

Begging.

“Fuck, Harry,” he whispered, his voice shaking.

“Do it!” Harry gasped. “Do it… fuck me, Dragon… Oh, _God! Fuck!_ ”

This last was dragged out of him as Draco finally breached him. He tried to go slowly, to give Harry time to adjust, but at the first hot caress of that perfect arse, the last of his control went up in flames and his desire took over. He rocked forward, pushed in and in, feeling Harry shudder beneath him, hearing him cry out in pain, until his bollocks pressed into the curve of his arse. He took a gasping breath, gathered himself, then began to move.

It was so fucking good… Nothing like his fantasies… The heat of Harry’s body. The way it clenched around his cock, seeming to swallow it. The sounds he made when Draco drove into him. The way his head fell back and his eyes rolled up. The way his skin flushed with want and beaded with sweat. The way the wetness from his cock pooled on his belly.

It was fucking heaven.

Draco felt the orgasm gathering in his core and snapped his hips forward harder, more urgently. Harry panted and bucked beneath him, rolling his hips up to take in more of him, searching for his lips and the kiss he craved. Their mouths met. Slid messily against each other. Parted and crashed together again. Harry bit at Draco’s lip and moaned when Draco thrust his tongue hard into his mouth.

That wrecked, filthy sound was the last straw for Draco. Pleasure sparked along every nerve and erupted in his groin. His hips jerked, burying him still deeper in Harry’s body. His cock leapt, spurting, and he came so hard that it almost stopped his heart.

When his mind swam up out of the molten soup of his release, he was still crouched over Harry, buried to the hilt inside him, sheened with sweat and shaking in reaction. He choked on a gasp, his arms buckling, and he fell hard onto Harry’s chest. They both tumbled to the bed.

Harry caught him, pulling him close, and muttered, “Fuck, that was brilliant.”

Draco tried to answer, but he didn’t have enough oxygen or brain cells for speech. He simply lay there, sucking air desperately into his lungs, waiting for the world to right itself, grateful for Harry’s arms that kept him from sliding off into the void. Then—slowly, reluctantly—he became aware of what was pressed against his stomach.

Harry’s cock. Hard and leaking.

Shoving himself upright, Draco pulled out of Harry’s body and Harry’s arms at the same time, sliding down his torso, muttering, “You didn’t come.”

“No, wait…”

He fetched up between Harry’s sprawled legs, crouched on elbows and knees, head bent over his enraged cock. It was gorgeous. And so hungry. He thought of holding it on his tongue and his lips swelled in anticipation.

“You don’t have to do that!” Harry protested.

Draco shot him a look from beneath his lashes. “I want to.”

Then he swallowed Harry’s cock.

It took him less than a minute to finish the job. He was a master at this, after all. Any qualms or uncertainty he felt about fucking another man vanished when confronted with a hard cock that needed sucking. And Harry’s needed sucking so very badly…

A few expert swirls of his tongue, a well-timed swallow, two fingers thrust into his slick opening at the perfect moment, and Harry was bucking up off the bed, fucking into his mouth, and keening his pleasure as he spurted down Draco’s throat. Draco swallowed the spunk easily—years of practice had its uses—and held him in his mouth until he began to soften. Then he pulled off, dropped a soft kiss on the inside of Harry’s thigh, and crawled up to cuddle against his shoulder.

They lay together in sated silence, wrapped around each other, letting the last of their tremors fade and a lovely, heavy lethargy enfold them. Draco burrowed his head into Harry’s shoulder and pulled the other man’s arm around him like a blanket—all the warmth and shelter he needed—then closed his eyes. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He was far too comfortable to contemplate prying himself out of Harry’s arms and going in search of cold leftovers.

“Did you really enjoy that?”

Harry’s soft whisper pulled him out of his golden, lust-warmed haze. He lifted his head and propped his chin on the other man’s chest.

“Hmm?”

“The blowjob. Did you enjoy it?”

Draco blinked. “Did you?”

“It was fucking amazing.” The utter conviction in his tone left no room for doubt. “ _You_ were fucking amazing.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I just…” His fingers toyed with Draco’s hair and his gaze darkened. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to, you know… _service_ me. Like I was a customer.”

Draco smiled impishly at him. “Were you planning to pay me?”

Horror flooded Harry’s face for a moment, followed swiftly by the realization that he was joking. His wide, white grin lit the room and sent blood rushing south to Draco’s cock.

“What if I did?”

“I’d spend the next hour giving you the best blowjobs of your life, but then, when it was over, I’d kick you out of my bed and send you home to your wife.”

“What if I don’t have a wife?”

“Then you’d have to wank yourself raw, thinking of me. Of course, you’d probably do that either way…”

“You’re that good, huh?”

Draco lifted an eyebrow at that. “You doubt me?”

“Not for a second.”

Harry lifted his head and pulled Draco up to meet his lips. They kissed deeply, messily, their ever-present lust rising at the first touch. Draco opened his mouth and hummed with pleasure when he felt Harry’s tongue push into it. The hum turned to a groan when Harry’s hand found his arse and gripped one cheek in strong, callused fingers. He was already fully hard and aching.

“I want you so fucking much,” Harry muttered against his wet, clinging lips. “Take me, Dragon. Fuck me. Fill me up. Make me scream and beg and come all over the sheets. Then do it again and again and again.”

Draco held his breath for a moment, letting the thrill of power course through him—the power to take what he wanted, the power to _choose—_ and decided just what he wanted tonight.

“Only if you do me, first.”

Harry gave a triumphant shout and rolled them both over, spilling Draco onto his back, landing on his chest. He grinned down at him with green flames dancing in his eyes, then bent to capture his mouth, murmuring, “It’s a deal…”

_**To be continued...** _


	5. The Wages of Sin: Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the original version of Chapter 15: The Corpse Under the Floorboards.
> 
> For the new and improved version, see _The Wages of Sin_ , Part 3 of the _In the Mirror_ series.
> 
> If you're reading this as a standalone (which is not recommended) please be aware that this chapter contains references to torture and rape.

* * *

_The Daily Prophet_

**_ROBARDS TO RETIRE_ **

_In a move that should surprise no one after the events of recent weeks, Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt yesterday announced that Gawain Robards is retiring from his position as Head Auror, departing at the end of the month. Shacklebolt spoke to an Atrium full of journalists, with Robards and Head of the DMLE Tiberius Crooke beside him. He said nothing about Robards’ reasons for stepping down and made only vague statements about who might be replacing him. Robards did not speak at all._

_Though Shacklebolt refuses to confirm it, his obvious next step is to appoint his long-time protégé and poster-boy, Harry Potter, to the Head’s chair. We can only assume that Robards has been squeezed out, after twenty years of dedicated service to the Force, to make way for the Chosen One. Unless the rumors are true that Potter himself has quit the Force and gone into hiding with his notorious husband, in which case, Shacklebolt is flying without a broomstick…_

* * *

Draco knew he’d made a mistake the instant he appeared on the sitting room rug. He felt that twist in his guts, that surge of _what-the-fuck-have-I-done?!_ panic, that nearly irresistible urge to turn on the spot and disappear, that came with the realization that he had made a truly terrible mistake.

It wasn’t that he felt unsafe—Merlin knew, if Harry’s wards couldn’t keep him safe then nothing could!—or that the house didn’t want him. It was Harry’s house, after all, with Harry’s magic living in the walls. It wanted him the way Harry did. Overwhelmingly.

No, the problem wasn’t with the cottage, which was beautiful and familiar and comforting and _right._ The problem was with Draco, who was so very _wrong._

His breath hitched, and he made a move to pull away from Harry. To turn on the spot and apparate back to the peaceful stasis of his squashy sofa and his Muted room at the Burrow. Then Harry’s arm tightened around him, drawing him into his side, and Harry’s lips brushed his ear.

“All right, love?”

“Mmh,” was all Draco could manage, but the strong arm, the warm voice, the gentle words steadied him. Gave him a crucial moment to collect himself and swallow his panic.

Harry gestured with his free hand, lighting the fire beside them and the candles set about the room. Obviously, he had been here recently, readying the place for their return. It was instantly warm and welcoming, with only a hint of mustiness in the air to betray how long it had stood empty.

“We’re safe here,” Harry murmured into the hair over his ear. “You know that, right? I’ve still got all the wards and protective spells in place. You’re as safe here as you were in the Burrow.”

Except that he wasn’t. Neither of them were because wards couldn’t protect them from the wound festering and stinking in Draco’s heart or the poison in his blood. And now that he’d left the Burrow, was back in the real world, the Stasis charm that had protected them there was gone. His heart was beating again, blood flowing, poison spreading, and it was only a matter of time…

Before he could find words for any of this, a furious white streak erupted through the doorway and shot over to him, meowing imperiously. He reacted without thinking, dropping to a crouch to meet the oncoming missile and scooping it up in his arms. Abraxas gave one final accusatory meow, then burrowed into his chest and began to purr. Draco let his knees hit the floor and bent to bury his face in the soft, white fur.

It smelled so good. Like home.

“He never lets me hold him like that,” Harry remarked, sounding faintly aggrieved.

“Mmh,” Draco grunted again, then dredged up a few actual words. “He missed me.”

“But not me, apparently, even though I’m the one who feeds him every day and puts up with his attitude!”

“And abandons him for weeks at a time with only a spell to take care of him. Magic can’t scratch behind his ears.”

“Hmph!” Harry caught his arm to pull him up. “Come sit down, and bring that ingrate with you.”

Guided by Harry, Draco carried the cat over to the settee and took his usual place in the corner closest to the fire. He drew his feet up onto the cushions, settled Abraxas on his lap and began to stroke the cat’s head. Harry nudged his hip to move him farther toward the back of the wide seat, then perched on the edge next to him.

“What would you like to do this evening?”

Draco just looked at him, askance. He hadn’t thought any farther than getting here, though maybe he should have. Maybe he needed a list—a very _long_ list—of things to do to keep his mind from wandering into dangerous territory. Unfortunately, he didn’t have one, and now he was stuck. Two minutes in the cottage, and he was already floundering.

“Thanks to Molly, we probably won’t need to eat for a week,” Harry went on, oblivious to the turmoil seething behind Draco’s composed face, “but we could have a glass of wine, or a cup of tea. Maybe have a bath and…”

“Tea,” Draco said hurriedly. “I’d like tea.”

“Right.” Turning away from Draco, he called loudly, “Kreacher!”

To Draco’s surprise—he’d seen no sign of the elf’s presence and had assumed that he’d found another, more upper-crust house to haunt—Kreacher _cracked_ into existence in the middle of the room. Abraxas promptly leapt up, hissing, back arched and teeth bared. The elf bowed low to Harry, then even lower to Draco and spoke in his bullfrog’s croak.

“Master Draco is home at last! Kreacher is very pleased to see this! Harry Potter is telling Kreacher that his most noble spouse is free, but still he is not coming home and Kreacher is not seeing him! Kreacher is afraid that Master Draco will never come home, that he is still a prisoner and being punished for the crimes of the bad elf Lissy!”

“Er…” Draco mumbled, not sure how to respond to this. He absently petted Abraxas, stroking down his bristled fur and trying to soothe him. The cat finally sank down on his haunches.

“Is Master Draco well again? Is he safe from the Aurors? Is he to stay here with Harry Potter where he belongs?”

“Yes.” Draco eyed the elf with a slight frown creasing his brow. “What about you? Are you staying with us?”

“Harry Potter gave Kreacher a choice. He said that Kreacher might go back to Hogwarts, where there are many young witches and wizards who need his care, or to his former mistress’ home, if he would be happy there. But for Kreacher, there is no choice. He will serve Harry Potter and his most noble spouse until he works himself to death and Master Draco mounts his head on a plaque to hang beside his…”

“Right,” Draco cut him off with a grimace. “Er… Let’s not talk about that. Let’s just have a nice cup of tea, shall we?”

The elf bowed again, this time so low that his ears mopped the floor. “Kreacher is honored to serve the last scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.”

“Tea, then, please,” Harry said dryly.

Kreacher shot him a sour look and disappeared.

Harry groaned and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, looking a trifle sheepish. “Sorry about that. I know he’s a bit much, but I couldn’t just pack him off to Hogwarts after everything he did for us. He’s gotten very attached to you.”

“I noticed.”

He’d meant it to sound dry, but it came out doubtful. Thanks to his recent ordeal, he had learned to view the obsessive devotion of house-elves with suspicion. He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to live with one bowing and scraping and fawning all over him, his speech to Harry about the duty ancient Wizard families owed to their elf retainers notwithstanding.

Harry caught the wary note in his voice and smiled crookedly. “I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about Kreacher. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about his blessed Family, but he’d never do something stupid or dangerous, even for the last scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I am. For one thing, he’s much too old and tired. And for another… well…”

“Well, what?” Draco demanded.

“Okay, there was one time when he did something incredibly stupid for his Family and it got Sirius killed…”

“This is not helping, Potter. In case you were wondering.”

“…but even then, he was following the orders. And he was sorry, afterward, when he found out how Bellatrix and Narciss- _uhhhh_ …” He suddenly looked even more sheepish and quite red in the face.

“My mother?”

Harry nodded. “How they had used him to trick Sirius.”

“Again, not helping.”

“Okay.” He scrubbed at his hair again, making it stand up erratically. “All I’m trying to say is that, even at his worst, Kreacher only ever followed orders from someone he trusted—a Black, like you—and he learned his lesson about betraying his master.”

Before Draco could express all the ways he doubted this claim, Kreacher appeared with a heavily-loaded tray that he set down on the coffee table. Harry thanked him and set the tea to pouring with a burst of wandless magic. Only when the elf was gone and he had a cup of perfectly-prepared tea in his hands, did Draco speak again.

“Did you ever think that maybe house-elves are more trouble than they’re worth?”

“All the time!” Harry replied, with a laugh.

“We live so closely with them, depend on them for so much, entrust all our secrets to them, and then…”

“Yeah,” Harry said softly. Then, more brightly, “You know what Hermione would say about it, don’t you? That we only get what we deserve, when we enslave an entire race of Magical Beings, teach them to live only for us, then betray them.”

“I didn’t betray Lissy,” Draco whispered into his tea cup.

“Lucius did.” The words were hard and uncompromising, lying like a brick of lead between them. “Your mother did. I did. All of Wizard kind did, in a way. That makes you just about the only person in her life who didn’t betray her in some way. Which explains why she would…”

“Right,” he snapped, cutting Harry off. He was not going there. “How about some Shakespeare? Where did we leave off in _Antony and Cleopatra_?”

“It’s kind of late for all that poetry, isn’t it? Aren’t you tired?”

“Not tired enough to sleep. Did you bring the book?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Pulling the book from his pocket and returning it to normal size, Harry casually expanded the settee so he could lean up against the arm next to Draco, then flipped to the marked page and held it out.

“You’re up, Cleo.”

“Cleo, indeed,” Draco muttered, taking one side of the book in his hand. “Philistine.” Then he started to read.

Draco kept them at it until they had polished off four cups of tea apiece and the last three acts of the play. Until Harry was yawning hugely and Abraxas had fallen asleep, going limp and heavy on Draco’s thighs. Until Antony and Cleopatra were dead and Caesar was left to dispose of the bodies. Then he had no further excuses.

He closed the book and tossed it onto the coffee table next to the tea tray.

“We’ll have to check in the attics at Grimmauld Place for more plays. Or suck it up and visit the Manor.”

Harry yawned again, his jaw cracking, then raked his fingers through his hair. “Tomorrow. I’m knackered.”

Draco just nodded, eyes skating away.

Harry waited for a moment, studying him with eyes so warm that Draco could feel their touch on his skin. Then he said, gently, “It’s okay if you want to sleep in here.”

“No.” Draco hoisted the cat in his arms and got stiffly to his feet. “I can sleep in our bed.”

Or so he bloody well hoped.

He took his time getting ready, lingering in the bathroom for far longer than it took to brush his teeth and put on his St. Mungo’s pajamas. Sure as he was that he belonged in that huge tester bed with Harry, he still needed time to screw his courage to the sticking place. Always assuming that he had any courage to screw.

He leaned close to the mirror mounted above the sink and studied the shadows around his eyes. No bruises, now. No swelling. No cuts or scars. No visible marks left, just the poison seeping up under his skin, black and foul, that no one else could see.

He shuddered and stepped away, dropping his eyes from his own reflection.

The bedroom was quiet when he drifted back into it on bare, silent feet. Harry lay in the bed, curled on his side, facing the door and away from Draco’s usual spot. A faint ball of wandlight hovered near the headboard, giving him enough illumination to find his way across the floor without stubbing his toes. He shivered—not from the chill in the air—and slid under the covers, disturbing them as little as possible.

Harry muttered, “ _Nox,_ ” and the light went out. Then he squirmed back a little, closer to Draco, offering the warmth and support of his body. With a soundless sigh of relief, Draco rolled up tightly against him and shut his eyes.

It took him a very long time to fall asleep.

*** *** ***

Harry awoke the next morning to find himself alone. He lay in bed, contemplating the canopy above his head, wondering what to make of Draco’s behavior last night. And this morning. The sun was barely up, to judge by the light, and he was gone already. Why?

Flinging back the eiderdown, he rolled to his feet and headed for the bathroom. Five minutes later, he strode into the kitchen to find Draco sitting at the table, drinking tea, looking a bit hollow around the eyes but otherwise perfectly fine. He even smiled when Harry came in.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” Harry replied, bemused. He headed for the hob and the tea pot warming there. “You’re up early.”

“I was feeling restless. Like I needed to be doing something. Unfortunately, there’s nothing for me to do around here.” He smiled sheepishly around the rim of his raised cup. “I would’ve made you breakfast, but I only know how to make fudge and treacle tart, and we don’t have the ingredients for treacle tart.”

“I’ll have Kreacher fetch them later. It’s nasty for breakfast, anyway. Much too sweet.”

“I didn’t know that was a concept for you.”

Harry grinned over his shoulder at him, as he began pulling food from the icebox. He quickly got the bacon frying and porridge bubbling. Draco watched with far more curiosity than he’d ever shown about cooking before, making Harry wonder if he’d caught the bug from Molly.

“You want to do the eggs?” he offered, holding up a cast-iron skillet.

Draco shook his head. “I prefer watching you do it.”

“Hm.” Harry set the skillet down on the flame and expertly cracked two eggs into it. Two more quickly followed, and the scent of eggs frying in butter promptly filled the room. “What you mean is, you like staring at my bum in these joggers.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“No.” Another glance over his shoulder. Another grin—this one a little too heated for comfort. “But maybe I’d like a turn at ogling your bum while you work.”

“I’ll make you some fudge, later,” Draco replied, smiling into his tea once more.

Harry laughed and settled into the routine of whipping up a nice, simple, filling breakfast for his family. He supposed that he could have asked Kreacher to do it, but he enjoyed making things for Draco, just as he enjoyed the feel of Draco’s eyes on him while he did it. Even such a small thing as knowing that the curve of his bum in a pair of thin, ratty, old joggers excited his husband’s interest was balm to his bruised heart.

Draco still loved him. Still wanted him. Still slept curled against his back and watched his arse as he walked by. He might flinch when Harry touched him unexpectedly or shy away from the press of his body. He might panic to find himself in their lovely cottage or the bed where they’d shared so many heated, hungry kisses. He might never lie in Harry’s arms or welcome Harry into his body again. But it wasn’t because he didn’t want it or because he didn’t love him.

It was because of Warwick. And Greyback. And all those fucking men in that fucking prison…

The thought made him angry, and he slapped the plate down in front of Draco just a little too hard, cracking it sharply on the wooden table. Draco looked up at him, eyes wide and questioning. Harry turned quickly away, before the other man could read his ugly thoughts in his transparent face. And by the time he returned with his own plate, he’d pushed them away. Found a smile and an easy word for his husband.

They ate in companionable silence, broken only when Harry got up to fetch a bowl of porridge for Draco, and the other man murmured his thanks. They were done and working on another cup of tea when Draco finally spoke.

“I need to get out of this cottage today. Can we go for a walk?”

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“Yes.” He fidgeted with his sleeves, tugging at them with nervous fingers, eyes on the window and the thin Winter sunlight shining through it. “I have to be. I can’t…”

“Draco.” Harry reached over to clasp his wrist and still his twitchy movements. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Harry quirked a wry, disbelieving smile at him, and he flushed. “I just need to keep busy, that’s all.”

“Why?” When he didn’t answer, Harry gave his arm a squeeze. “Come on, Dragon, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Draco swallowed audibly, then spoke to the window in a rough, hurried way that told Harry just how hard he was fighting to keep himself under control. “I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to be adult about this. Sensible. _Brave,_ like a fucking Gryffindor. But it’s harder than it looks when you do it.”

“You don’t have to do it, if you’re not ready.”

“Yes, I do. I can’t go running back to the Burrow and hide under Molly’s skirts.”

“Then hide here, with me.”

“That’s what I thought I could do… why I asked to come home.” He twisted his fingers together, anxiously, and shot Harry a sideways look. “But it doesn’t work that way.”

“I know you’re scared, Dragon, but you really are safe…”

“I just want some fresh air,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t care where we go, but I need to be outside for awhile.”

Harry surrendered—what else could he do?—and gave up trying to pry the truth out of his stubborn spouse. Instead, he shrugged, sent all the dishes flying into the sink for Kreacher to deal with, and went upstairs with Draco to get dressed for an outing. Less than an hour later, they set off down the rutted, muddy lane toward the village.

* * *

Icklesford was not at its best at the tail-end of a cold, wet Winter. Everything looked rather shabby and dirty, with the grass dead and the flowers not yet blooming, but it was still better than tramping through the half-frozen fields. The sunshine, however weak and fleeting, drew the Muggles out of their dwellings and sent them scurrying about the square for this, that and the other reason. To the Post Office, the bookstore, the chemist, the grocer. Even to the pub—probably for a smoke, a cup of coffee and a chat, since it was too early for a pint.

The two young men strolling among them, anonymous as they were with hats pulled down to their eyebrows and scarves wrapped up to their noses, might have passed unnoticed, except that Harry insisted they hold hands as they walked. Icklesford was not exactly lost in another age, but it was still parochial enough to find this a noteworthy sight. More than one person did a double-take and watched them longer than was polite, once they realized that the smaller figure at Harry’s side was as male as he was and not a tall, square-shouldered woman.

Draco blocked out their unwelcome stares, concentrating on the firm pressure of Harry’s hand and the warmth he always drew from his husband’s nearness. He wasn’t ashamed of who or what he was. Wasn’t ashamed to walk hand-in-hand with another man,most especially not _this_ man. So why should he flinch when a Muggle turned to stare?

He was Draco Potter. This was his home. These were his neighbors. He was safe with Harry and life was good… at least for this little slice of time on a sunny, chilly, February day.

They made a leisurely circuit of the square, stopping at the bookstore to pick up a couple of new plays and the grocer’s for milk and tea. Harry led them down a side lane and into the walled garden of a guesthouse—closed in the off-season—where he could charm his pocket to hold their purchases. Then they resumed their progress until they reached The Three Sisters.

Halting just short of the tea shop door, Harry tugged his scarf down to ask, “Shall we stop in for some scones?”

“We just had breakfast,” Draco protested.

“I always have room for Mare’s scones. And you still haven’t tasted them.” When Draco just stared at the sign swinging above the inn door, saying nothing, Harry urged, “I promise I won’t let her bite you.”

He sighed and nodded, resigned to his fate.

Harry chuckled and swept him through the door before he could change his mind. The divine smell of baking scones struck him full in the face. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, let a beatific smile curl up above the edges of his scarf.

Harry’s hand squeezed his in warning, right before he called, “Hullo, Mare! Have you got a table for us?”

Draco opened his eyes to see Mare—still square and plain and dressed in appalling mud-colored slacks—turn from another customer to answer his summons. For a moment, she looked blank. Then Harry pulled off his cap, exposing his wild rats’ nest of hair, and she broke out in a delighted smile.

“Harry Potter! As I live and breathe! I can’t remember the last time you set foot in my shop!” Her eyes shifted to Draco and crinkled warmly at the corners. “And Draco.” There was no mistaking the welcome in her voice. “I’m so glad to see you, my dear.”

Draco tugged off his own knit cap and pulled the scarf away from his mouth so he could offer her a shy smile. “Hello, Mare.”

“I was that angry with Margot for her behavior,” she went on. “I told her, in no uncertain terms, what I thought of it. ’My girl,’ I said, ‘you shamed me, that’s what you did! You drove away a new friend and shamed me!’ Well!” She shook out her floury apron and swept them both with a still-wider smile. “Come sit down, my dears. The best table by the fire, just waiting for you. And a plate of scones on the house, since you never touched yours the first time…”

She bustled them back to a table right in front of the massive hearth of Cotswold stone, talking all the way. Then she stood back, smiling in satisfaction, as they peeled off their many layers and sat down. Harry took the chair to Draco’s left, with his back to the blaze, and very pointedly clasped his hand.

Mare fairly beamed at this. “Draco told me you were married. I should scold you for not telling me yourself, but I expect you had better things to do on your honeymoon than natter with an old woman.”

“We’ve been away or we would have come sooner,” Harry assured her. “We only got home yesterday.”

“And couldn’t wait for my buttermilk scones, eh?”

“Nope.” He grinned up at her, radiating that effortless Harry Potter charm that never ceased to make Draco’s blood boil—with resentment or lust, depending on the circumstances.

Today, it made his cheeks flush and his crotch swell.

“Could you bring us a pot of tea and some of those scones? And don’t stint on the clotted cream!”

“I never do,” Mare retorted.

Then she bustled away, leaving Draco to stare at his husband in helpless lust-fueled longing. Harry threw him a laughing look, brows up under his fringe.

“What?”

“You’re doing it again. Making the whole world love you.”

“Mare loves everyone.” His smile turned taunting. “She’s certainly sweet on you.”

“She’s just embarrassed about that scene with Margot.”

“No, she’s definitely sweet on you. It took me months to rate a ‘my dear,’ and you’ve got one on your second visit. Though, granted, she probably wants to feed and mother you, rather than pinch your bum.”

Draco’s cheeks flamed painfully. “Git.”

“Draco.”

The sudden shift in tone brought Draco’s eyes to him. Harry was leaning forward, pinning him with his most earnest gaze, clutching his hand to his chest in both of his own. Draco’s mouth went dry.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve got to stop thinking that I’ve got some magical power over people that you’ll never have. Or that they only put up with you for my sake. It doesn’t take magic to make them like you. Just be yourself.”

“What if _myself_ is a nasty little twat with a vicious tongue?”

“That’s not you.” Harry lifted a hand to push Draco’s hair back and cradle his cheek. “You’re beautiful, and you’re fine, and you’re loving. And yes, you have a vicious tongue sometimes, but that’s part of your charm. The point is, you _do_ have charm.”

“Bollocks.”

“People genuinely like you, you stubborn git, and not because I’m standing beside you.”

“They also genuinely hate me, and you’ll never change that, no matter how hard you try.”

“Yeah, well, those arseholes are easy to deal with.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Fuck ‘em.”

Draco blinked at him, taking in his solemn expression, the mischievous gleam in his eyes, and felt love swamp him in a tremendous wave. Harry Potter was a fucking idiot, full of romantic foolishness and optimistic twaddle, but he was Draco’s idiot. Draco’s romantic fool.

On an impulse, he fastened his fist in the front of Harry’s jumper and pulled him into an open-mouthed kiss.

Of course, Mare returned in the middle of it, but Draco wasn’t about to stop for that. Hetightened his grip, closed his eyes, and lost himself in the heat of his lover’s sweet, idiotic, twaddle-spewing mouth.

Mare transferred their tea service to the table with admirable efficiency, then whisked herself away just as Harry finally pulled out of the ravenous kiss.

“Ta very much!” he called after her and got a wave in answer.

Draco hummed his pleasure at the sight of those lovely, golden-brown scones and the enormous pot of clotted cream beside them. Without waiting for Harry to pour the tea, he grabbed a scone, tore it open, and inhaled the rich, warm scent.

“Oh, mercy,” he moaned.

“Just eat it, already. That noise you’re making is almost obscene.”

In an act of pure provocation, Draco uttered another moan, more wanton and lascivious than the last, then broke out in a laugh when Harry glared at him.

“Behave yourself,” Harry said sternly. But the twinkle in his eye betrayed him, as did the kiss he snatched before Draco could get the scone in his mouth.

They settled down to enjoy themselves, stuffing scones slathered in clotted cream and strawberry preserves into their faces, then washing them down with tea. Draco honestly thought he had never tasted anything better in his life—except maybe for Harry’s lips with cream and strawberries smeared on them. He privately vowed to drag his husband here at least once a week for an orgy of eating and snogging.

When they had devoured every last crumb, Harry scooted his chair around next to Draco’s, and they sat very close together, holding hands, Draco’s head on Harry’s shoulder, while they gazed placidly into the fire. It was lovely and warm and peaceful… Until a trio of young women blew into the shop.

They were giggling and whispering, shooting avid glances about the room, looking so utterly out of place that they might as well have been wearing ‘Potter fangirl’ t-shirts. Harry took one look at them, blanched, and cast a surreptitious charm to deflect attention. The two men scrambled into their coats and made a hasty escape, leaving enough Muggle money on the table to pay for their tea.

Out on the pavement, they linked arms and hurried through the square, laughing whenever their gazes met. Up the lane by the church, they paused for a snog—all cold noses and hot mouths, still laughing down low in their throats and humming with pleasure—before continuing on their way. Draco walked lightly, easily, stretching his legs to keep up with Harry’s longer strides, feeling the warmth of their kisses in his blood and the taste of them on his lips.

Content. That was how he felt. Content and happy. Words he couldn’t remember using in… a lifetime.

His mood lasted all the way home but began to fade as the afternoon progressed. Determined to keep busy, he went through his entire meagre wardrobe, cleaning, freshening, dewrinkling, even banishing the dank odor of despair from the clothes he'd worn to Azkaban. That done—all too quickly—he neatened his dressing table and wasted a fair bit of time toying with the jewelry Harry had bought him that he’d never yet worn.

The distractions offered by the bedroom exhausted, he fled to the kitchen and demanded that Kreacher let him help with supper. He learned to peel potatoes with magic—not the culinary adventure he’d hoped for, but it occupied his hands—then moved on to shelling peas and chopping onions. When Kreacher put the assembled shepherd’s pie into the oven and refused point blank to let Draco clean up after him, there was nothing left for Draco to do but to retreat to the garden. There, he huddled on the back stoop, staring at the ruined wall and melted birdbath, trying to think of ways to repair them, until summoned to the table for supper.

He could feel Harry’s eyes on him as they ate. Auror’s eyes. Searching. Assessing. Wondering. He tried to ignore them, but the longer they sat without speaking, the more burdensome his gaze became.

His plate empty, Draco jumped up and hurried to the sink, where he began washing dishes in the Muggle way. Harry finished his own meal a little more slowly, then dropped his plate in the sink and left without a word. Draco tried not to worry. Just as he tried not to think or to feel or to remember.

He didn’t hear Harry come back in a few minutes later, so the light touch on his shoulder made him jump. A cup slipped from his soapy fingers and cracked perilously on the counter’s edge. He wanted to snap, “ _Fuck,_ Harry! You scared me!” but the silence still sat too heavily on him and he only hissed.

“Leave that for Kreacher and come with me,” Harry said quietly, his hand now resting warmly on Draco’s shoulder.

“Where?”

“You’ll see.”

‘Where’ turned out to be their bathroom, and it was clear that Harry had been busy. The room was drenched in golden candlelight, warm with magic, rich with the scent of sandalwood. The beautiful old Victorian tub was full of steaming water and piled high with frothing bubbles. Fat towels lay draped over a convenient chair. Two glasses of ruby-red wine floated invitingly above the tub. There was even a paperback copy of _Richard III_ , purchased that afternoon, lying ready to hand.

Draco took one look and felt his innards twist with a painful combination of longing and panic.

He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let his guard down. Couldn’t expose himself this way, even to Harry…

“Draco.” Harry stepped up close to him. Stroked gently down his arms to catch his hands. Drew him forward a step. “Don’t run away from me, please. I can take anything but that.”

Draco shuddered and turned his eyes away from the wistfulness in the other man’s gaze.

“I know you’re scared of something,” Harry went on softly. “I’ve watched you since we got home. You’ve been frantic. Never holding still for more than two seconds, like whatever it is will catch you if you do. But when you were with me in the tea shop, you were better. You were calm and happy—you were _enjoying_ yourself—and you weren’t afraid.”

He edged even closer and bent to murmur directly into Draco’s ear, “You’re safe with me. You know you are. Just climb in the tub. Lie back in the hot water. Relax and trust me.”

Draco clenched his eyes shut and held onto Harry’s hands as tightly as he could.

He honestly didn’t know what to do. It was such a little thing for his husband to ask—just a bath, and what was a bath in the grand scheme of things?—when Draco had already denied him so much. And yet…

“Draco?”

He opened his eyes. Lifted his head to find Harry gazing at him with painful intensity. Swallowed the hard lump in his throat, only to find that he had nothing to say.

“Please?”

With an inward sigh, he turned away and began stripping off his clothes. If Harry was hoping for a more enthusiastic response, he didn’t betray it, just pulled off his socks and started on his outer flannel shirt. Draco was naked, his clothing kicked into the far corner of the room, before he turned to confront Harry again. He found the other man still dressed in a white t-shirt and pants.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward Harry. “I’m not afraid of your naked body.”

“Maybe _I_ am,” Harry retorted, with a grin. Then, more soberly, “I think this will make it easier for both of us.”

Draco tried not to show his sudden flush of guilt and embarrassment, turning quickly to climb into the tub. Folding himself down into the hot, wood-scented embrace of the water, he ducked his head and let the steam coat his reddened cheeks. Then, after the barest hesitation, scooted to the opposite end of the tub from where Harry always sat and leaned back against the slick porcelain. Harry followed him, sinking into his usual place with a groan of ecstasy.

The tub had never returned to its original size once they started using it regularly, so it was still so large that Draco felt as if he were in an overheated swimming pool. It was even more noticeable when he sat alone, facing Harry across a veritable sea of bubbles.

He was so far away. Draco didn’t like him being so far away. It felt wrong. He stretched out his legs, stroking them up Harry’s calves, anchoring himself with the feel of Harry’s skin and the play of his muscles when he moved to tickle Draco with his toes.

Harry smiled and plucked the wine glasses from the air. Offering one to Draco, he said, “Here, it’s the good stuff.”

 _Why the fuck not?_ Draco thought, as he accepted the glass and raised it to his lips. _If I’m going to lose my fucking mind, I might as well get pissed first._

It was the good stuff. It felt like warm, red velvet in his mouth and filled his head with the flavors of wood and coffee and purple fruits. He lay back, eyes half-closed, and savored it. Let the heat of the water and the warmth of the wine flow through him, opening doors in his mind… Doors that hid so many secrets…

“He was in the cell.”

The words came out of his mouth unbidden. He wasn’t even completely sure that it was his own voice saying them.

Harry abruptly lifted his head and demanded, “What?”

“My father.” This time, Draco could feel his lips forming the words, but the voice still sounded like someone else’s—dark, scratchy, haunted. “He was in the cell.”

He could see Harry from beneath his lowered lashes, sitting forward, frowning at him. After a moment, the other man shook his head.

“He wasn’t. Draco, your father is dead.”

“I saw him. He was in the corner of the cell… watching while they fucked me. His friends.”

“That was just your mind playing tricks on you. He _wasn’t there._ ”

The words just kept coming from some place in him Draco hadn’t known existed. He couldn’t stop them or control them. And every one of them ripped open another door, tore open another wound, exposed another hideous secret.

“Sometimes, when they’re in you, even though you hate it and you’d rather be dead than feel it, your body just… reacts. You can’t stop it. You want to, but you can’t.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Harry whispered.

“I tried. I really did. But I was too weak and scared, and I couldn’t… couldn’t help it.” He lifted his gaze to Harry’s and saw the gleam of tears in his eyes. “My father laughed. Every time. Like he could see right through me and knew I really wanted it.”

“Draco, no.”

Harry slithered to the middle of the tub and reached for him, grabbing his hands, banishing their wine glasses, and pulling him forward. They both landed on their knees, facing each other, surrounded by heaps of scented bubbles and curls of steam. Harry lifted wet hands to clasp Draco’s face.

At his touch, Draco’s lips began to tremble. “I shamed myself in front of my father, and he laughed.”

“You didn’t. You _didn’t_.”

“I shamed both of us. I called for you, when I…” His chest heaved on a sob. “ _Fuck! Harry!_ ”

Harry caught him behind the head and pulled him close, tucking his head into the curve of his neck. “I know. It’s okay.”

Draco closed his eyes, feeling Harry’s bare skin and the rough cotton of his wet t-shirt against his cheek. The first hot tears squeezed from between his lashes.

“Greyback was there, too. He howled and wanked himself and said… said I belonged to him… and my f-fucking father _laughed_ …”

“It’s okay, love. It’s okay.”

Harry abruptly fell back against the canted end of the tub, carrying a shaking, sobbing Draco with him. He didn’t touch his back, didn’t try to restrain him, just clasped his head and petted his hair and kept repeating his soothing noises. Draco huddled against him, face burrowed into his neck, the ugly words still spilling from his lips no matter how desperately he wished that they wouldn’t.

“He watched while they questioned me. Father and Voldemort and that _snake._ It was eating something… something with a _foot… Nngh!_ ” He choked, gagging at the memory.

Harry pressed a kiss to his forehead, murmuring, “Easy. Try to breathe.” Then, longingly, “May I hold you?”

“Yes. Please,” he whispered.

Harry’s arms promptly tightened around him—strong and warm and perfect. He shuddered with relief, let his body go limp and his tears quicken.

“I don’t want to remember it, Harry, any of it… What they told me, what I said, what I s-saw… Voldemort taunting me, grinning at me, his face splitting open and falling away, his tongue… his t-tongue crawling like a snake… And my father standing in the corner, watching, waiting… He’s still there, I know it! Still waiting for me! Waiting to take me with him!”

“No, he isn’t. It isn’t real, Draco, I promise you.”

“How do I know? H-how do I know which is real and which is my mind torturing me?” The words poured out of him faster and faster, his voice scaling up, while he clung to Harry with a strength born of panic, hiding his face in the other man’s shoulder. “They said you weren’t coming for me. They said… they said I’d done all those things, that I was a killer and whore and a slag! That I’d hurt those men! I’d fucked my father and Snape and- and _Voldemort!_ They said you knew what I was and didn’t want me anymore… didn’t care what happened to me… I just wanted to see you again, Harry! I just wanted to go _home!_ But they said… they said…”

“They _lied!_ ” Harry said furiously. “You know that!”

“How? How do I know?”

“Because I’m _here!_ I’m _right here!_ ”

“What if _this_ is the lie?! What if I’m still back in my cell, with my father, dreaming of you?! What if he’s standing there, watching, _laughing_ … waiting for those men to _fuck me to death?!_ ”

“Draco, stop!”

“He’s there, Harry, I know he is! He’s waiting for me! When they’re done, he’ll take me away and I’ll belong to him forever! I’ll be his whore _forever!_ ”

“Draco! Hey!” He caught Draco’s head between his hands, forcing him to look up. “Look at me!”

“I can’t!”

“You can. Draco.”

He finally dragged his eyes open, unable to resist the command in that voice. Harry’s face was only a few inches away, so close that Draco could see every detail, even through the tears clogging his eyes. He looked angry. Frightened. Determined. And so beautiful.

_So beautiful!_

It hurt to look at him and know that he was only a dream. A figment of Draco’s madness. A last, tantalizing glimpse of home before he was lost forever.

“Harry…” he whimpered, sounding pathetic in his own ears and not caring.

“Shh.”

“Harry, I’m sorry…”

“No. No apologies. Draco, look at me.” His impossibly green eyes caught Draco’s. Held them. Refused to let them slide away. “Now tell me, what’s the one thing you absolutely know about me?”

He answered immediately, the words coming to him without thought. “You love me.”

“That’s right. Did I stop loving you when you disappeared for three years?”

“No.”

“Did I stop looking for you when everyone thought you were dead?”

“No.”

“Did I leave you in that brothel when I found out what you’d been doing all that time?”

“No.”

He paused for a bare moment, stroking Draco’s wet cheeks with his thumbs, then asked, more softly, “Did you really believe that I wouldn’t come?”

Draco shut his eyes as scalding tears welled up in them. “No.”

“No.” Harry’s lips touched his eyelids, then his cheeks, then his mouth. “Because you know that I will always love you and always want you and always, _always_ come for you.”

He kissed Draco once more, then gathered him close in his arms again. “So trust me when I say, _this_ is real.”

Draco took one hitching breath, slipped his arms around Harry’s waist, and began to cry in ugly, tearing, heaving sobs that threatened to rip his body apart.

* * *

Harry had reheated the bathwater for the fourth time and was feeling a bit like an over-stewed prune, when he realized that not only had Draco stopped crying, he had fallen asleep. The other man lay limply against him, head on his shoulder, face buried in his soggy t-shirt, hair snarled about his face and drifting in the cloudy water. His ribcage rose and fell gently, steadily, beneath Harry’s arms, while his breath tickled Harry’s throat. It was the most quiet and peaceful that Harry had seen him since his return from Azkaban. As if he had finally found a place without nightmares.

Too bad all it took was to cry himself into a coma.

He Vanished the water from the tub and used a Drought charm to dry them both a bit. Then he wrapped Draco in the soft towels he’d laid ready and carried him into the bedroom. Draco stirred when Harry lifted him, mumbling something into his neck, but Harry soothed him with a soft word and he drifted off again.

Laying him out on the bed, Harry dried him with a combination of terrycloth and magic. Then he dressed him in his flannel pajamas, plaited his hair to keep it out of the way, and tucked him beneath the eiderdown. He was stripping off his own damp clothing when Draco opened his eyes.

“Harry?”

Harry dropped his pants and clambered onto the bed, crouching down to bring his face close to the other man’s. He rested a hand on Draco’s head. “Right here.”

Draco looked at him for a long moment, face soft and unguarded, eyes blurred with exhaustion, pupils dilated. Then he murmured, “This is real?”

“Yes, love, this is real.” Harry kissed his hair and smoothed it down. “Go back to sleep. I’ll join you in half a mo’.”

Draco grunted and let his eyes flutter closed again.

Harry moved quickly, anxious to be close to his husband again in their big, warm bed. He cleaned up the bathroom with a few well-chosen spells, extinguishing the candles, banishing the wet clothes and towels to the laundry. Then he dried himself more thoroughly, scrambled into his pajamas, and climbed under the covers.

He was about to turn over, to give Draco a warm back to cuddle against as usual, but was halted by a fist in his shirt. Draco grabbed him and tugged him close, tucking his head under Harry’s chin. Harry hesitated for a beat, then wrapped the other man up in his arms.

He fell asleep in minutes, a smile on his face and his dragon lying against his heart.

**_To be continued…_**


	6. The Wages of Sin: Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the original version of the Epilogue: The Lovers in the Mirror.
> 
> For the new and improved version, see _The Wages of Sin_ , Part 3 of the _In the Mirror series_.

* * *

_The Daily Prophet_

**_CHOSEN ONE CHOSEN AGAIN_ **

_…If the rumors of McTeagle’s ouster and Potter’s appointment prove true, Harry Potter will become the youngest Head Auror in the history of Wizarding Britain. Just the latest in a long line of responsibilities and honors laid on the Chosen Shoulders…_

_…Many influential figures in the wizarding community have expressed concern at Shacklebolt’s blatant favoritism and Potter’s evident inadequacy for the job, to say nothing of the unfairness to McTeagle, who will be squeezed out of the top job after less than two years. But as usual, the Minister for Magic is deaf to advice or warning…_

_…Shacklebolt and McTeagle refuse to comment on the rumors. Potter, as always, remains unapproachable…_

* * *

_— Eighteen months later —_

Draco stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror, gnawing his lip in doubt. He tugged at the hem of his long lavender silk shirt where it brushed his thighs. Then he smoothed one sleeve down over the jagged scar that poked out from beneath the rolled cuff.

His eyes dwelled on the shirt. The snug-fit jeans with their swirls of color climbing his legs. His dissatisfied frown deepened.

The face and hair were all right—nothing he could do about them, anyway—but the clothes were another matter entirely. Lavender was an old-lady color. It reeked of tatted lace doilies and too many cats. It did match the embroidery on his jeans, which was why he’d chosen it, but then again, maybe the jeans were all wrong. Maybe he needed to strip off and start over. Except that Harry loved these jeans and had practically begged him to wear them…

Bloody hell! Getting dressed shouldn’t be this sodding difficult!

He huffed and forced himself to stop twitching at his clothing. Dropping his hands to his sides, he straightened his shoulders and glared at the man in the mirror.

 _Pull yourself together, you twat_ , he thought, fiercely. _It’s just a fucking shirt!_

It was just a fucking shirt, but it still mattered. How Draco presented himself today mattered, and not just—as was so often the case—because of how it reflected on Harry. Today was as much about him as it was about Harry, and that really was the crux of the problem. Ironic and ridiculous as it seemed for a former Malfoy, Draco wasn’t comfortable being the center of attention.

His reflection glared back at him—tall and pale and angular, all long limbs and longer hair—a familiar sight. And yet, in some ways, so different from the ghost who had haunted his mirror for so long. He had softened with the fading of his fears and the return of health, filled out just enough to lose his cutting edge. Lean, now, rather than thin. Graceful rather than predatory. The shadows around his eyes gone, as were the bruises and scars and subtle poisons, and the eyes themselves able to look him in the face without flinching or sliding away.

He was—though he rarely said the word in his own head, no matter how often his husband spoke it aloud—beautiful.

Once, he would have preened at the thought or calculated how he could use that beauty to his advantage. Later, he would have hidden from it, cowered in the dark, afraid of attracting eyes or worse. Now, he viewed it critically, measuring what he saw against the expectations of those who judged him _._ But in the end, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of him. He was what he was and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—change it.

Harry thought he was beautiful. Harry never asked him to put on wizard’s robes or a three-piece suit. Harry never questioned why he shunned anything in black or Slytherin green. Harry bought him embroidered jeans and women’s lavender silk shirts and jewelry. Harry combed his ridiculously-long hair, running his hands through it as if it were the most precious thing he had ever touched, then plaited it lovingly and pressed kisses to the nape of his neck.

Harry loved him as he was—Merlin only knew why—and that was all the reason he needed not to change.

But today…

Today was different. Today was important. Today he couldn’t hide in Harry’s shadow. And speaking of Harry…

The man himself appeared in the bedroom doorway, clearly visible in the mirror hanging on the inside of the wardrobe door. Draco glanced over at his reflection, met his eyes, and tried to smile. Harry slipped into the room and up to Draco’s side, approaching at an oblique angle rather than coming up directly behind him. Then they were standing side-by-side, gazing at each other in the mirror.

Harry, as always, looked perfect without trying. Without actually _achieving_ perfection, which never ceased to amaze and irritate Draco, no matter how often he witnessed it. His unruly hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed in a week, his crooked glasses, his cargo pants with their stretched-out pockets and baggy knees, his faded moss-green shirt slipping loose from his waistband in back—they were all typical Harry and would make anyone else look like a derelict. They just made Harry look more adorable, more fascinating, more gorgeous and shining and powerful and _perfect_ than the most expensive custom-designed robes ever could. Like a diamond wrapped in burlap.

Harry, as always, didn’t see it. He had eyes only for Draco and never even glanced at his own reflection. Raking his husband with an appreciative gaze, he bumped Draco’s shoulder playfully and asked, “Ready to go?”

“No,” Draco said flatly. Then, more sullenly, “I can’t go out looking like this.”

“Like what?”

He gestured vaguely at his own reflection, grimacing. “Like one of my grandmother’s antimacassars.”

Harry blinked. “What the fuck is an antimac… macass…?”

“Never mind.” Draco turned away, reaching for the shirts hanging in the wardrobe. “I have to change.”

“Draco, seriously, what’s wrong with the way you look?”

“Everything.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and shook his head.

Harry chuckled. Looped his arms around Draco and pulled him into his chest. Draco didn’t flinch or try to pull away, so he snugged their bodies together and propped his chin on Draco’s shoulder. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Draco, my darling, love of my life, fire of my loins. You are utterly ridiculous.”

“Yes.” Draco gave him a level look. “Yes, I am. Now, may I change my clothes?”

“No. No one is going to care what you’re wearing. No one is going to judge you for whatever it is that makes you feel like an antima-thingy.”

“Antimacassar. Honestly, Potter, were you raised in a barn?”

“A cupboard, which isn’t too far off. Luckily, I have a husband who might as well have gone to fucking Finishing School and can educate me in these matters. What’s an…” He paused again, scrunching up his face, and Draco was quite sure that he could pronounce the word perfectly but was taking the mickey, when he said with exaggerated care, “… _antimacassar?_ ”

“Decorative cloth that you drape over the backs and arms of chairs to keep the upholstery clean. Obviously.”

A wicked smile twitched Harry’s mouth. Green devils danced in his eyes. “And what, my dearest love, makes you think you look like you belong draped over the back of a chair?”

Draco almost choked on his own tongue at the image this conjured in his head. “Potter!”

“Don’t ‘Potter’ me in that tone of voice! I asked a perfectly reasonable question!”

“And I’m going to hex your bollocks off, if you don’t behave yourself! I have to get dressed, or we’re going to be late!”

“You look perfect just the way you are,” Harry said, suddenly earnest. “Beautiful and graceful and just a little too classy for the rest of us.” Pausing to gaze straight into his husband’s troubled eyes, he added, “You look like yourself.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Draco murmured. “This is important, Harry. I can’t fuck it up. That means, I can’t _be_ myself.”

“Bollocks. We’ll be among friends. People who love you for who you are.”

“What about the Press?”

“Today, even the Press will love you.”

Draco snorted at that but couldn’t quite repress a smile. Harry’s stubborn optimism was endearing, even if it was borderline insane. He sucked in a steadying breath and met Harry’s eyes squarely.

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“To my marrow.”

“Have you ever considered that you’re the only person daft enough to love me for who I am?”

“What about Ron?” Harry countered. “Or Hermione? What about Hagrid? Ginny? Luna? _Teddy?_ That kid adores you! He never stops chattering about his fabulous Cousin Draco with the _really long_ hair! Honestly, I’m not going to list all the people who love you because it will only puff you up and make you more insufferable than ever!”

Draco smiled dutifully at this, but it didn’t last. He regarded their two faces, hovering so close together in the mirror, and started gnawing his cheek again.

“You’re going to chew a hole in your face that way,” Harry said pleasantly.

Draco gave a short, wry laugh, then suddenly broke away from him. Crossing to the dressing table in a few strides, he pulled open the left-hand drawer.

Harry was right. If he was going to do this at all, he had to do it properly. He had to step out of the shade and show Draco Potter to the world, not some dumbed-down or washed-out version of him, but the real thing—lavender silk and all. Otherwise, what was the point?

He opened a velvet box that lay in the drawer and pulled out a piece of jewelry—a simple bangle made of polished silver set with moonstones. Slipping it over his left hand, he let it fall around his wrist and studied the effect in the dressing table mirror. The oval stones caught the sunlight pouring through the window and sparkled blue and purple.

“That’s beautiful.”

Harry was close beside him, having crossed the room silently while he stared at the bracelet. He caught Draco’s hand. Lifted it. Dropped a kiss on the tip of the scar showing below his cuff, then another on the pulse-point in his wrist and another in his palm.

“You’re beautiful.”

“You always say that,” Draco murmured wistfully.

“That’s because it’s always true.” He wrapped an arm around Draco’s waist and pulled him in so he could kiss his lips. “And today you’re even more beautiful than usual. So beautiful that the whole sodding world is going to fall in love with you.”

Draco smiled. Combed the thick, curling, fabulous mop of black hair back from his forehead to expose his lightning bolt scar. Pulled his head down so he could press his lips to it. “Prat.”

“Are you ready to do this, Dragon?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

*** *** ***

Wiltshire in the Summer. It didn’t get any lovelier than this.

Fields glowed green and gold and poppy-red in the mellow sunshine. Trees rustled on a slight breeze. Birds twittered in the hedgerows. Bees zipped from flower to flower, legs fat with pollen. Rabbits nosed in the grass and voles poked sleek heads from their burrows. It was perfect. So perfect that it might have been plucked from Draco’s childhood memories and brought to life just for him.

Then some sodding idiot had gone and filled it with people.

Some sodding idiot called Harry Potter.

How in bleeding hell had he let Harry talk him into this? _Friends_ , he’d said. _They’ll love you for who you are_ , he’d said.

Bollocks!

For every familiar face in the mob that filled the narrow country lane—Andromeda, Teddy, Hagrid, several Weasleys—he could see a handful of strange ones. And even some of the familiar ones weren’t exactly friendly. George Weasley? The surviving Terrible Twin had never gotten past prickly and snarky with his adoptive brother. Dennis Creevey? He was an ally in the Press, no question, but Draco hadn’t been this close to him since Hogwarts—since he’d stolen his dead brother’s identity and dragged it through the mud of Knockturn Alley—and had no idea how he’d react to actually meeting the infamous Draco Malfoy.

Then there were the other reporters. Three of them, at least, that Draco could spot at a glance, and none of them smiling. The spiky witch standing with Creevey looked as if she were itching to spear something on her quill, just for the pleasure of hearing it squeal.

Draco shuddered and groped for Harry’s hand, clutching it fiercely, trying not to notice that his husband’s fingers were trembling as much as his own were.

Sodding Gryffindor. He was supposed to be the brave one. The hero. Why was he shaking?

Tilting his head toward the other man, he muttered from the corner of his mouth, “Now what?”

Harry gave a huff of nervous laughter and squeezed his hand. “I’ve got this.”

“Sure, you do.”

Lifting his free hand for attention, Harry cleared his throat. “Hullo, everyone!”

An expectant quiet gripped the crowd. All eyes turned on the two young men standing together before the tall, wrought-iron gates, hands tightly—almost desperately—entwined. Draco swallowed nervously. He was suddenly sure that his silk shirt was sticking to his back in sweaty patches and his plait coming undone.

Harry tightened his hold on Draco’s hand for a shot of courage and opened his mouth again, but all that came out was a strangled, “Erm…”

“Brilliant opening, Harry” Ron remarked.

Harry chuckled, and his shoulders unkinked a bit. He scrubbed his free hand through his hair, looking sheepish. “Cheers, Ron.”

“You’re pants at this, mate. Better let Ferret do the talking!”

“His name is Draco, and you’re not helping.”

Ron subsided with an unrepentant grin, leaving Harry to confront the audience with a flush of irritation staining his cheeks. “As my _best mate_ so kindly pointed out, I’m pants at this. But a grand opening calls for some kind of speech, so I’m afraid we’ll all have to suffer through it.”

“Or you could just open the gates!” George called.

“Oh! Oh!” Teddy began bouncing on his toes with excitement. “Is it time, Harry? Can we go in?”

“No, it is _not_ time and we can _not_ go in,” Harry said wearily. “Remind me again why I invited any Weasleys to this event?”

“Because we’re the only ones who will sit through your rubbish speeches,” George retorted.

Hagrid suddenly boomed from his place at the back of the crowd, “Tell ‘em about the Thestrals, Harry!”

A ripple of noise went through the crowd at that.

“And the Quidditch pitch!” Teddy chimed in.

“Honestly…” Harry began, even as Granger rolled over him in her most strident tone.

“Will everyone _please_ let Harry speak?!”

“Oi! Potter!” a strange voice shouted. “Tell us about your new job!”

“I don’t have a new…”

“Rumor has it that Shacklebolt is sacking McTeagle and making you Head Auror!” the spiky-looking reporter interjected.

“You should know better than to listen to rumors.”

“How does your _husband_ feel about it?” She let the word ‘husband’ slither out of her mouth like a particularly foul-tasting slug. “Is he looking forward to sharing cocktails with his old customers at Ministry functions?”

“Oh!” Molly gasped, her cheeks flaming. “That’s _quite_ enough out of you, young lady!”

Harry, meanwhile, was pounding his forehead lightly on Draco’s shoulder and muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” under his breath.

Draco took one look at the chaos growing around them and heaved an inward sigh of defeat. Then, lifting his chin arrogantly to mask the fear squirming in his guts, he stepped forward.

“Excuse me!”

It took the crowd a moment to realize that the despised Draco Malfoy was actually daring to speak. Then, abruptly, the chatter and laughter stilled to a tense, waiting silence. All eyes fastened on Draco, making his skin crawl and his face heat, but he refused to back down.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, when he had their full attention. “On behalf of Harry and myself, I’d like to welcome you to the unveiling of the Manor Gardens.”

Dead silence—heavy with scepticism—met his words. He smiled fractionally.

“You were expecting something a bit more macabre? A guided tour of the blood-soaked mansion where Voldemort had his last meal, perhaps?”

“The Lucius Malfoy Memorial Abattoir!” George shouted.

“ _George!_ ” Molly snapped, while Bill smacked his younger brother smartly in the head and said, “Shut it, you.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Classy, George. Really.”

Draco lifted his hand and the noise subsided once more. “I don’t blame you for imagining the worst. You hear the name Malfoy Manor, you remember the stories from the war, you think of all that wealth and Dark magic in the hands of yet another Malfoy, and you assume nothing good can come of it.”

“Too right,” someone grumbled, but another anonymous voice hushed him. Apparently, the audience was genuinely interested in what Draco had to say.

He went on his most earnest tone, “In some ways, you’re right. Nothing good has come out of the Manor in years. But this estate is much more than one manor house, and its history goes back for centuries, long before my father or Lord Voldemort got their hands on it. For all those centuries, this land was cultivated, nurtured and treasured…”

“Treasured by pureblood bigots and murdering Death Eaters,” the spiky reporter cut in.

“Some of them, yes,” Draco agreed with a nod, “but that didn’t make them bad caretakers.”

He lifted his eyes to the faces massed around him, willing them to listen. “I know a lot of you have ugly memories of this place, and believe me, I understand. My own are none too pretty. But I also remember it as it was before the war, beautiful and magical—magical in the way a child understands magic, as something mysterious and enchanting and _wondrous._ ”

Harry squeezed his hand, and Draco cut a grateful look at him from the corner of his eyes.

“I hope that when you see what we’ve created here, you’ll feel some of that magic and you’ll begin to love it, just a little.”

“So, this is just another attempt by a Malfoy to buy our forgiveness,” the reporter said snidely.

Draco gave her a level stare. “I don’t want or need your forgiveness. I don’t care what you think of me. And I’m no longer a Malfoy.”

That caused a fluttering among the audience but only earned him a nasty smirk from the reporter.

Draco pitched his voice to carry through the crowd and went on, “I believe that the Malfoy family owes wizarding society a debt for the damage they caused. This estate is all that’s left of that family, so it’s all I have to offer in payment.”

“Yes, but… as a _garden?_ ”

To Draco’s surprise, it was not the spiky reporter who spoke this time, but Granger. She stood with Rose clinging to her skirts and Weasel clasping her shoulders, frowning at him in genuine confusion. The knitting of her brows was endearing in its familiarity.

“I understand you wanting to do something useful with the property, especially since you don’t want to live there, but a _garden?_ I can’t see you and Harry pruning shrubs and weeding flowerbeds…”

Draco smiled. “We have a team of gardeners for that.”

“Still…”

“It’s not complicated, Granger.” His eyes cut over to the reporter. “Or sinister. All of my best memories of childhood are tied up in these grounds. The lake, the woods, the stream that runs through the willow grove. Wildflowers in the tall grass. Frogs croaking in the fountains. Thestrals flying over the trees in the evening.” He smiled fleetingly at Harry. “Snow frosting the grass at Christmas. Those are the things I love about this place. The Malfoys are gone. The Manor is gone. But the gardens are still here and still as beautiful as they ever were. I want to keep them beautiful, keep them growing, and share them with everyone in our world who’s willing to step through these gates.”

A thick silence met his words, only broken when Teddy cut right to the heart of the matter and demanded, “You have _Thestrals?_ ”

Draco and Harry both laughed at that.

“Yes, Teddy,” Draco assured him, “we have Thestrals, though I doubt you’ll be able to see them.”

Harry spoke up, his voice alight with pride and excitement. “But you’ll be able to see the fairies, garden gnomes and bowtruckles, if you look carefully. We even have some Grindylows in the lake! Hagrid brought them from Hogwarts!”

“They eat the leeches,” Draco added, grinning.

“Can I catch one?” Teddy asked, eyes the size of dinner plates.

“You may _not,_ ” Andromeda said severely.

“I want to see the Grindylows! And play Quidditch! Can I, Harry? Can I? _Pleeeese?!_ ”

Harry exchanged a look with Draco, brows up under his fringe and eyes twinkling. “What do you say? Is it time?”

“I’m certainly done talking.”

Harry swept the crowd with his gaze. “Any questions?” When he saw a reporter at the back open his mouth, he amended, “Any _relevant_ questions?”

He gave them a beat, then turned back to Draco. “Care to do the honors?”

Draco nodded and stepped up to place his hands on the wrought-iron bars. They shuddered at his touch, recognizing him, and swung silently open at gentle push. When the gates stood wide, framing a manicured gravel path between flowered borders, he turned to face the audience again. With a sweep of his arm, he invited them in.

“Welcome to Manor Gardens. Please enjoy yourselves.”

“But don’t tease the garden gnomes,” Harry put in gaily, “they bite!”

* * *

It felt strange to walk through his family’s gardens and hear voices. Laughter. Children calling excitedly to their parents.

In the past months, Draco had grown used to seeing them without the somber stone bulk of the Manor louring at their center, throwing its long shadows across the lawns and shrubberies. The estate looked so much bigger this way. Bright and rich with color in the sunshine. Magical, just as he had hoped. But he didn’t think he’d ever get used to all that laughter.

Harry had skived off to the Quidditch pitch with Teddy. Without him, Draco felt both too exposed and comfortably invisible. No one seemed interested in the despised Malfoy heir, so he could drift unnoticed through gardens that had once been his domain. He was skirting the hedge-maze, making for the wilder, less manicured fields to the South, when Ginny Weasley suddenly popped up at his side.

“Hullo, Malfoy,” she chirped. “I thought I’d find you skulking in the shrubberies.”

He was actually glad to see her, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Pasting a smirk on his lips, he drawled, “Look who’s talking, _Ginevra._ Hiding from your adoring fans, I suppose?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just hoping to get lost in the hedge-mazefor a couple of hours with Harry’s notorious husband. Start a really juicy scandal.”

Draco snorted and rolled his eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. Ginny always made him smile, even when she insisted on calling him Malfoy and said deliberately provocative things. He was glad that if anyone had to waylay him today, it was her.

“I can see the headline now.” He swept his hand in a dramatic arc. “‘Bent Pariah Blackens Name of Britains Most Beautiful Quidditch Star.’”

“That has a nice ring to it.” She slipped an arm through his and gave it a companionable squeeze. “But you’re not a pariah today. After that performance at the gates, you’re a media darling.”

That earned her another, more derisive snort.

“Seriously. You handled that beautifully, _and_ you spared us one of Harry’s truly painful speeches!”

“Poor Harry. He promised so faithfully that he would protect me from the bloodthirsty journos.”

“He seriously needs to get over his saving-people thing. Where is he, anyway? I’d have thought he’d be glued to your side, ready to hex anyone who looks cross-eyed at you.”

“Apparently, my charms are nothing when compared to those of five-year-olds on broomsticks.”

“Even in those jeans?” Ginny needled, a wicked glint in her eyes as they raked his slender form.

Draco gave her a severe look that only set her off laughing. “You are shameless.”

“That’s what you love about me.” She gave his arm another squeeze and started walking, forcing him to fall into step beside her. “I’m glad Harry’s busy. That means I can get a personal tour of the Malfoy estate from the man who knows where all the skeletons are buried.”

“We dug up the skeletons when we demolished the Manor.”

She chuckled, then turned wary eyes on him. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Mostly.”

Ginny’s bright laughter trailed after them as they moved way.

They were strolling across the grass, headed in the direction of the willow grove, Draco trying to explain what it had taken to break the complex spells that bound the stones of the old Manor together, when they spotted Luna Lovegood meandering through the field. She held a bunch of wildflowers in her hand and wore a woven crown of them on her pale hair. When she saw her friends, she waved and veered toward them.

“Hello, Draco. I’ve been exploring your beautiful grounds. I saw so little of them the last time I was here that I never realized how large they are.”

“Er…” Draco mumbled, flushing at the thought of just how little Lovegood had actually seen on her previous visit to the Manor. Just the dungeons, basically.

“Weren’t there peacocks?” she asked, blithely unaware of his discomfort. “Huge, white peacocks? They screamed at night.”

“Yes, my father always kept a few of them on the estate.”

“What’s happened to them? Nothing horrible, I hope. Not that I cared for them. They were quite nasty and their screams gave me the shudders.”

“Nothing too horrible. My mother took them.”

“Oh, that’s all right, then.” She fixed her prominent eyes on him, then swiveled them to Ginny. “You two look very cozy, walking arm in arm.”

She said it in all innocence, but Ginny, being Ginny, could not help turning it into something else. Pulling Draco’s arm tightly to her chest, she cooed, “We do, don’t we? I’ve decided that Draco is my next celebrity conquest. When our picture turns up on the front page of the _Prophet,_ there will be the most terrific scandal! Harry will have to challenge me to a duel!”

Draco flushed still more furiously and tried to pull away, but her grip was like iron.

Luna _tsked_ softly. “You’re embarrassing him, Ginny. That’s unkind.”

Then—because one embarrassing female was never enough—she plucked a wildflower from her bouquet and stuck it into his plait.

“I expect you’re reacting to his moonstone bracelet. Moonstone is a powerful symbol of fertility and sensuality. It calls to your inner goddess.” She added another flower, then another and another to his plait, all the time musing, “It’s quite natural. I feel it, too. But you must remember that his spirit is already bound to Harry’s.”

“Luna!” Ginny protested, laughing. “I was only teasing!”

“That’s good. Harry’s one of my best friend and I wouldn’t want him upset.” Luna tucked the last flower behind Draco’s ear, then smiled sweetly at him. “You look lovely.”

“Er… Thanks. I think.”

When Luna started in on healing properties of Moonstone, Draco decided that he’d had quite enough—of Lovegood’s well-intentioned idiocies and of Ginny’s far less innocent ribbing. He politely but firmly detached himself from the two women, soothing his conscience with the certainty that they would amuse each other far more effectively than he could. Then he fled to the lake to visit the Grindylows.

They might consider leeches a delicacy, but at least they didn’t talk rubbish.

* * *

Harry found him there a couple of hours later. He was crouched on the muddy bank, feeding earthworms to the Grindylows. At Harry’s call, he looked up, broke out in a smile, and dropped the last of his wriggling treats into the water. Then he rose gracefully to his feet and _Scourgified_ the mud from his hands before letting Harry grab them.

With a tug on his hands, Harry gathered Draco into his arms and gazed into his upturned face.

“You have flowers in your hair.”

Draco huffed and rolled his eyes. “Lovegood.”

“Ah. That explains it.”

He touched one purple-blue cornflower lightly, then traced a line with his fingertip along Draco’s jaw and up to his lips. They softened at his touch. Parted. Invited a kiss that Harry had no power to refuse.

Bending to capture the other man’s lips, he drank deeply from them, stroking his tongue into his mouth and humming with pleasure when Draco’s rose to meet it. They stood locked together, mouths moving ever more urgently, their kiss turning from yearning to demanding as their bodies warmed and their cocks filled. Harry could feel Draco’s erection pressed hard to his thigh by the time he finally pulled back. His own cock was aching and his bollocks were tight.

Draco sighed, tilted his head back, and eyed Harry from beneath the sweep of his lashes. “Are we really going to do this here?”

“Where do you suggest we go?”

“Somewhere less public.”

“Ashamed of me, Dragon?”

He chuckled down low in his throat, making Harry grin stupidly with happiness. “My sunblock charm slipped and my nose is getting burnt.”

Harry promptly kissed the tip of his nose. It was, in fact, turning pink, and at Harry’s playful gesture, his cheeks brightened to match. Letting go of him, Harry held out his hand. His smile was an offer and a challenge.

“Come on. Let’s find shade _and_ privacy.”

They ran for the woods, holding hands and breaking out in foolish laughter every time their eyes met. In the shelter of the trees, Harry leaned back against a convenient trunk and pulled Draco into his arms once more. The dash for cover had not cooled their blood or softened their cocks, and at the feel of Draco’s loins pressed intimately to his, Harry groaned softly.

He rocked his hips, rubbing their swollen cocks together and relishing the way Draco’s face heated. “Fuck, I missed you.”

“You’re the one who scarpered with Teddy and left me to the tender mercies of Ginny Weasley. _Circe’s flaming tits_ , that woman is dangerous!”

“A positive menace. What did she do this time?”

“Tried to claim me as her next trophy fuck. As if I would follow in the footsteps of Clive the Ponce!”

Harry laughed, his whole body shaking with amusement. “I should hope that wasn’t the only reason you turned her down.”

“Well… it may also have had something to do with her breasts…”

“Git,” Harry purred, even as he pulled Draco into another flaming kiss.

This one quickly got out of hand. One taste of Draco’s lips, and Harry was rutting helplessly against him, clutching his denim-clad arse in one hand and a fistful of silver-gilt hair in the other. Draco didn’t seem to mind. He had both hands buried in Harry’s untamed mop of hair and one leg hooked around his calf, all his weight resting against Harry’s larger body, surrendering to his urgent touch. When Harry lifted him clear off his feet and ground their cocks together, he moaned.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry breathed, abruptly breaking the kiss and letting Draco sink back onto his feet. “I’ve been dying to do that all day.”

“Then why did you stop?” Draco murmured, nipping lightly at his jaw.

“Because I was about to embarrass both of us.”

“I’m not embarrassed. I’m hard enough to come in my pants—or somewhere on your naked body, if you prefer.”

“Fuck,” Harry said again.

His head was spinning and his body burning. He wanted Draco desperately—evenmore desperately than usual, if that were possible. It took all his self-control not to strip him naked right there in the Thestrals’ wood and bugger him silly. And that was a problem.

Harry loved his life with Draco. He loved everything they did together and truly needed nothing more. If he remembered a time when they would fuck through the night, Harry balls-deep in Draco’s beautiful arse, it was only that. A memory. And the only pain it caused him was the realization that his lover had never—likely _would_ never—fully heal.

Harry could live without burying himself in Draco’s arse. He didn’t expect it. Didn’t need it. And most of the time, didn’t miss it. But every once in a while…

He shuddered slightly and guided Draco’s head down into his shoulder so he didn’t have to look at his face.

Today was one of those rare days when he doubted his restraint. When he needed to take a step back, catch his breath, and remind himself that a fuck, no matter how mind-bending, was not worth the damage it would do. He would let Draco come all over any part of his naked body that he liked, as many times as he liked, but not ’til he’d gotten ahold of himself.

“Harry?” Draco lifted his head. Fixed him with gleaming eyes. “That was an offer, in case you missed it.”

“I didn’t.” He stroked his hands down Draco’s back, pausing to fit them around the perfect curve of his arse, and felt the reckless heat flare in him again. “And I’ll definitely take you up on it. Just not here.”

“Hmm.” Draco leaned in to kiss him again, teasing his lips open with his tongue, then slanting his own more firmly against them. “Where, then?”

“Salazar’s cock! We’re both acting like randy teenagers! Was I really gone that long?”

Draco cast him a provocative look from beneath his lashes and smirked. “It’s my Moonstone bracelet calling to your inner goddess.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow at him. “It’s what, now?”

“I have it on _excellent_ authority that Moonstone is a potent symbol of fertility and sensuality…”

“Luna!” Harry groaned, letting his head fall back against the tree. “I should have known!”

“You most certainly should. But now that we know _why_ we’re acting like randy teenagers, shall I take the bracelet off and chuck it in the lake? Or shall we just get down to it?”

“I’m not going to blow you in the woods,” Harry said severely.

“No? You’ve done it before. Remember Hogwarts? Behind Hagrid’s cabin?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably as his cock began to leak. “Still. We have guests to consider.”

Draco looked at him for a long minute, his face suddenly serious. Then he asked, “Do we really have to be here? They all seem to be enjoying themselves. The gardens are a success.”

“A brilliant success,” Harry agreed fervently.

“So what do they need from us?”

Harry bit his lip. “You want to leave?”

“I want my husband to take me home.”

Harry regarded him for another moment or two, then pushed himself away from the tree and wrapped both arms around his slighter body.

The two men disappeared with a _crack._

* * *

Harry didn’t want to let go of Draco the instant they apparated into the sitting room. He didn’t want to distance himself from the other man, didn’t want so much as a molecule of air between their bodies. In fact, what he wanted more than anything was to back Draco up against the settee, ravish his mouth, bare his body, swallow his cock, and make him keen with pleasure as he came. But he couldn’t do any of this ’til he had a firmer grip on himself, so he reluctantly dropped his arms and stepped back.

Draco made no protest. Just blinked at him in confusion.

“How about a cup of tea?” Harry said brightly. Then, before Draco could answer, he headed for the kitchen.

Draco was still standing in the same spot on the hearthrug, still wearing the same puzzled look, when Harry returned five minutes later with a loaded tea tray. He watched as Harry set the tray down and waved his hand to start the tea pouring. Then he took the cup Harry held out to him.

“Sit down, Draco. Please.”

He drifted over to the settee, eyes still fixed on Harry’s face, and perched on the far end.

“Biscuit?” Harry held out a plate of shortbread.

Draco shook his head. Took a sip of his tea. Watched Harry from the corners of his eyes. Something about his steady regard and enigmatic expression told Harry that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Harry gulped his own tea and smacked his lips. “Mmm. I needed that.”

Draco quietly set his cup on the table. He got to his feet and took a step closer to Harry.

“Er, how about some music, then?” Harry asked in desperation. “Will you play for me?”

Draco gave him another steady look, expression guarded, even cautious, then shrugged and headed for the piano that stood to the left of the fireplace. Harry heaved a silent sigh of relief and let himself collapse into the settee cushions.

They had brought the lovely upright piano from Narcissa’s private parlor at the Manor, one small piece of Draco’s childhood that they’d managed to salvage from the wreckage. In the months since, Draco had taken to playing it nearly every day. Harry, though an ignorant boor when it came to Classical music—as Draco never failed to point out—loved to watch him. He didn’t care that he could barely tell Chopin from Tchaikovsky or a Nocturne from a Concerto. What fascinated him was the look on Draco’s face when he played, the way his head bowed thoughtfully over the keyboard, the tilt of his shoulders, the grace and speed of his fingers, the droop of his lashes over his inward gaze, the smile that tilted his lips so very slightly when the last note echoed into silence.

Draco was always beautiful. At the piano, he was glorious.

Of course, today Harry couldn’t look. Not when his entire purpose in suggesting that Draco play was to distract himself from the effect his husband had on him. So, rather than fix his gaze on Draco’s face, he slumped back and closed his eyes.

Draco tinkered idly at the keyboard, not settling on any single piece, just filling the room with pretty notes. Harry smiled to himself, picturing his expression. Then, suddenly, his playing became more purposeful. More tuneful. Somehow haunting. And he began to sing.

“ _If I could make a wish I think I'd pass,  
_ “ _Can't think of anything I need…_ ”

Harry almost jerked up in surprise but managed to stop himself in time.

Draco never sang. As often as Harry had heard him play, the only time in his life that he’d ever heard him sing was at the Horntail. On that stage. For all those gloating, greedy men. Filling that room with his low, rough-edged voice that stroked over Harry’s skin like callused fingers and set his nerves on fire.

If that fact alone weren’t enough, the tone of his voice and the words coming out of his mouth would have told Harry that this was something special. A once-in-a-lifetime moment. If he shattered it now, it would never come again.

He’d lose that voice forever.

“ _Making love with you has left me peaceful, warm and tired.  
_ “ _What more could I ask? There's nothing left to be desired_ …”

He held his breath, willing himself to utter stillness, until voice and music soared together into the chorus.

“ _Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you…_ ”

Suddenly, he was on his feet, headed for the piano. He couldn’t help himself.

“ _All I need is the air that I breathe, yes to love you.  
_ “ _All I need is the air that I breathe…_ ”

Flattening his back to the wall beside the piano, Harry gazed intently at Draco’s face, unable to tear his gaze away.

He played with his eyes closed, his head tilted up, finding the notes by instinct. When he drew in a breath, it sobbed in his chest. That was when Harry realized that he had tears on his cheeks. The song soared again. That incredible voice stroked over Harry’s skin, making his guts twist, his cock stir and his heart ache with want.

Harry just watched and waited. Let him sing the final chorus, let the last haunting line rise with the piano’s notes and fade into nothing. Then Draco’s eyes flicked open and they stared at each other.

“Did you sing that at the club?” Harry finally asked.

“Sometimes. Not often.”

“Why not?”

“It hurt too much.” He hesitated, eyes still locked on Harry’s, then added, “It was always for you.”

“Draco,” Harry began, pushing himself away from the wall and stepping toward him.

Draco was suddenly on his feet, around the piano bench and reaching for Harry’s hand. He laced his fingers through Harry’s and turned for the door, pulling the other man after him. Harry followed in numb silence, too overwhelmed by emotion to offer any protest when Draco led him down the hallway and into their bedroom. He shut the door, added a spell to tell Kreacher that they were not to be disturbed, then dropped his wand on the bedside table and turned to face Harry.

Their bodies were barely a handspan apart. Much too close for comfort.

“Draco, I can’t…”

“Shh.” He caught Harry’s head between his hands, cradling his face in his palms, in a gesture that Harry had used himself a hundred times. “Trust me.”

Harry closed his eyes in a brief, fervent prayer for strength. In that moment, he wanted so desperately to hold onto Draco, to draw strength from him the way Draco so often did from him, to trust that the other man would set the boundaries and the pace of their lovemaking. He wanted to let go and let his husband be his guide. But he was afraid… _so_ afraid of overstepping and hurting the one person he had sworn would never feel pain at his hands.

“Harry.”

Draco took a step closer, still clasping his head, bringing their bodies together.

“I’ve missed you.” One hand skimmed down Harry’s side, then moved between them to cup his crotch. “Missed having you inside me.”

“Oh, God…” Harry breathed, his entire body shuddering when the heel of Draco’s hand pressed into his rigid cock.

He bent his head to bury his face in Draco’s neck, where his plait fell over his shoulder. The hair was soft and smooth under his cheek, perfumed by the wilting flowers still stuck in it, and the skin of his throat like silk against his lips.

“God, Draco.” He felt tears squeeze through his lashes, as he whispered, “You have flowers in your hair.”

“I want you inside me again, Harry.” Draco slipped his hand behind Harry’s head, pulling him closer, and pressed his cheek to his hair. “Please.”

“Anything for you,” he lifted his head to fix tear-blurred eyes on his husband’s face, “but you have to be sure.”

“I’m sure.” Draco kissed him, mouth open and hungry, breath hot and quick on his face. “Absolutely sure.”

“ _God_ ,” Harry groaned again, even as he caught Draco up in his arms and carried him over to the bed. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

He set Draco on the mattress, then leaned over him, bearing him onto his back. Draco’s legs came up, parting to let Harry kneel between them, and his arms circled his shoulders. He lifted his head, finding Harry’s lips with his own, clinging desperately to them. Harry’s head was spinning and his cock leaking by the time he finally pulled away.

“You know you don’t have to do this! Not for me!” he gasped, struggling for rationality even as Draco’s hands sank into his hair and tugged to draw him down again.

“Stupid sodding Gryffindor,” Draco murmured lovingly.

He claimed Harry’s mouth again, lips hot and swollen and messy, tongue reaching for his, arms and legs closing around him and pulling him down. Harry sank onto him and felt the full impressive length of his erection push into his belly. Draco arched up against him with an insistent grunt, and for a perilous moment, Harry thought he was going to come in his pants.

Knowing he was running out of time and control, he sent out a surge of magic to banish their clothing. Draco gasped, shivered, then rolled his hips, and suddenly their cocks were sliding together, spreading slick moisture over their skin. Harry caught Draco’s arms and stretched them up over his head, pinning them down, and began kissing his way down his throat.

“Nngh… Harry…” he groaned, body twisting to increase the friction between them.

“Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Harry murmured into his sweat-dampened neck. “Trust me, love… I’m going to make you feel so good…”

“Anything,” Draco panted, “anything, just not…”

Harry caught the hint of fear in his voice and immediately lifted his head. “What?”

Draco swallowed once, his throat working, and whispered, “Not from behind.”

“Never.” Harry stooped to kiss him. “I never would.”

Then, on a sudden impulse, Harry rolled over, pulling Draco onto his chest. The smaller man sprawled atop him, looking down in some surprise, until Harry caught his thighs and guided him into position straddling his hips. Then he broke out in a beatific smile.

“Come here.” Harry slipped a hand behind his head, pulling him close, while his other hand stroked down his back and over one cheek. “Pull your knees up.”

Draco complied, folding his knees and tucking them against Harry’s ribs. Then, as Harry found and fingered his opening, he groaned softly, rolled his hips and arched his back, spreading himself wantonly. Another wandless spell, and Harry’s fingers were slick with lubricant.

“You don’t have to,” Draco whispered into Harry’s neck, writhing at the feel of Harry’s finger working into him. “I don’t need it.”

“You do. It’s been a long time, and I’m not going to let anything hurt you tonight.”

“I like it when it hurts.”

“Not tonight,” Harry repeated, firmly.

He slid his finger in farther. Worked it gently around. Eased it out and added another.

Draco, done with arguing, pushed into his hand and groaned his encouragement. “Stupid sodding Gryffindor,” he panted, “if you don’t hurry up, I’m going to come on your fingers.”

“So, come,” Harry replied. “We’ve got all night.”

“Nnngh-no… Please, Harry.”

“Okay.” Sliding his fingers out, Harry caught Draco’s arms and pushed him upright. “Mount up, Dragon.”

Half-laughing and half-whimpering, Draco rose on his knees. He reached behind him to find Harry’s cock and guide it into position. Then, body taut with anticipation, eyes locked to Harry’s, he sank down onto it in one long, smooth slide. The moan that rippled from his lips as he did so was so filthy and so perfect that, once again, Harry nearly pitched into orgasm on the spot. By a superhuman effort, he held it in. Held himself rigidly still as his cock sank ever deeper into the caressing heat of the other man’s body.

Then Draco was sitting astride his hips, impaled on his cock, gazing down at him with lust-blown eyes. His cheeks were flushed and his lips parted. His plait, still threaded with flowers, fell over his shoulder to tickle Harry’s ribs. His cock stood up stiffly from the place where their bodies met, dripping hungry juices onto Harry’s stomach.

He was so fucking beautiful that it hurt to look at him.

They just stared at each other for a long minute. Draco licked his lip, his tongue sliding over the swollen, reddened curve. Harry caressed his ribs, his waist, his thigh.

“I never thought I’d see you like this again,” he whispered.

Draco gave a brief, flickering smile, then let his head fall back and his eyes close. He began to move, rolling his hips, pulling against the hardness spearing him. Harry gasped, his head lifting and his shoulders curving up as every nerve ending sparked deliciously. His fingers sank into the muscles of Draco’s thighs hard enough to bruise. Draco just moaned, down low in his throat, and moved faster. Harder. Bracing his hands on Harry’s chest for balance as he rode him.

“Fuck… Draco…” Harry groaned.

Draco didn’t answer. His thighs were trembling, his skin beaded with sweat, his fingers crooked until his nails bit into Harry’s skin. He spread his knees wider, lifted himself a handspan up, then froze, while Harry gasped and swore under him.

“ _F-fuck, Draco! Please!_ ”

With a long, shuddering moan, Draco sank down once more, swallowing him to the root, and began to rock in the urgent, stuttering rhythm of release. He cried out. Scrabbled at Harry’s chest. Spasmed around his cock. Then slumped forward, shuddering, as he pumped hot, white stripes of come over Harry’s stomach.

Harry held him, one hand behind his head, the other on his hip, feeling the aftershocks rip through him and listening to the small, helpless noises he made.

“Draco,” he whispered, now petting his hair. “Draco, tell me you’re all right.”

“Mmh.”

“Tell me it was good.”

“Hnngh… Harry…”

“Please, love. Please.”

His own body was on fire, his cock aching and pulsing, buried as it was in the sweet heat of Draco’s arse, but all he cared about now was knowing that Draco had been right. That he needed this. That his shaking was all from the power of his release and not from fear or regret.

“Please tell me it was good.”

“Nngh-no it wasn’t good,” Draco finally mumbled, “it was fucking brilliant.”

Harry gave a startled laugh that turned into a groan. He combed the straggling hair back from Draco’s face and pressed his head into his shoulder.

“Bloody fucking hell! I fucking love you!” Then, quite suddenly, he rolled over to tip Draco onto his back and land between his spread thighs. “And I want to fuck you into the mattress! Is this all right?”

Draco laughed up at him, his face still soft and flushed and dazed with sex. Hooking a hand behind Harry’s neck, he pulled him down into a kiss. At the same time, his legs came up to lock around his waist.

Harry gave a panting moan of gratitude and longing, then began to thrust.

* * *

Draco lay curled into Harry’s side, head on his shoulder, wrapped in his arms. His posture was sated, trusting, but he wasn’t drifting toward sleep as he should be. He was very much awake. Coiled. Tense.

_Thinking._

Harry could almost hear his brain working.

“Draco?”

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong?”

Draco lifted his head to blink at him. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you worrying so loudly?”

“I’m not worrying.” He broke off, eyes going unfocused, then sighed and settled his head back into its usual place in the hollow of Harry’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe a little. It’s just…”

“What?” Harry prompted softly, his fingers toying with the long strands of Draco’s hair that had long since come loose from their plait. There were still petals clinging to them.

“I can’t help thinking, sometimes, of all the ways my life has gone wrong,” Draco murmured. “All the hideous things I’ve done or let other people do to me.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest but realized, just in time, that Draco didn’t need his denials or reassurance. He needed to talk. And the best thing Harry could do was to keep quiet and let him.

“Do you know,” he went on in a haunted whisper, “that I can still _smell_ my room at the Horntail? The smell of sweat and spunk. Of greasepaint. Of all those men rubbing themselves on me…”

He shuddered slightly and slipped one arm around Harry’s waist to hold him tightly.

“The smell is the worst. That’s what I remember most about Phineas—lying face down on my parents’ bed, smelling my mother’s perfume, while he plowed my arse—and Azkaban.” He shuddered again, his whole body wracked by it this time. “I smelled them before I saw them, the men who had me. They smelled of sex. Of lust. Of _violence_.

“Did you know it has a smell? That need to cause pain with sex? It’s true. Once you smell it, you never forget… the stink of a man who’s about to hurt you in every possible way and come to the sound of your screams. Warwick had it. He never touched me, never had me, but he got off on what the others were doing to me. I know he did. I could tell by the smell of him.”

“Draco.” Harry couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t listen in silence. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I just… I started remembering…”

“Why? Did I do something to upset you? Was it the sex?”

Draco abruptly lifted his head to pin his husband with a wide-eyed gaze. “No, Harry. It was nothing you did.”

“But…”

He scooted farther up, bringing his head on a level with Harry’s, and repeated, firmly, “It was nothing you did. I just have to remember sometimes.”

“Right after I shag you for the first time since Azkaban? You think that’s a coincidence?”

“I think…” He paused, then reached up to cup Harry’s cheek with his hand, to touch the down-turned corner of his mouth with his thumb. “I think I’m having trouble believing that this will last. That’s it’s real. That I can possibly be this lucky and this happy after the total, fucking disaster I’ve made of my life.”

“ _You_ didn’t make your life a disaster,” Harry countered.

“I did. No,” he shifted his thumb to press across Harry’s lips and hold them closed, “let’s be honest about that, for once. I made choices—stupid, destructive choices—and I’m the only one to blame for the consequences.”

“You did not _choose_ to be raped and prostituted and bound to Voldemort!” Harry protested hotly.

“No, but I chose to finish what my father started. I chose Phineas over prison, Nero over starvation, and both of them over you.”

“Only because you thought I was out of reach.”

“You make excuses for me because you’re too bloody forgiving for your own good, but I still did it. And I’m not convinced mistakes that bad can ever be fixed.”

“They can.”

He smiled sadly and stroked Harry’s cheek with his thumb. “You have to say that. You’re the sodding Savior and you never admit defeat. But Harry… what if I can’t be saved? What if none of this is real and I’m still at the club, spread out on that chaise with a stranger’s cock up my arse, doped out of my mind and dreaming of you? Or what if this is just a little slice of time before it all goes to shit again, like in Azkaban? The universe’s way of torturing me—giving me everything I ever wanted, just so it can rip it all away?”

“Stop it, Draco.”

He went on, unhearing. “That’s really what I deserve, isn’t it? That’s what happens to people like me, when they fool themselves that they can change…”

“ _Stop_.” Harry lurched upright, forcing Draco to sit up as well, and caught him by the arms. “This is all rubbish, and you know it. You and I are real. Our life together is real. And I’m not fucking going anywhere, right?”

When Draco just looked at him, eyes too large in his pale face, Harry gave him a slight shake. “Right?”

The beginnings of a smile tilted his lips. “If you say so.”

“I do. And anyway, the universe can’t punish you without punishing me, and where’s the justice in that?”

His lips twitched, then widened into a full-blown smile. His eyes narrowed with amusement. “Entitled, much?”

“Hey, I’m the sodding Savior, remember? I’m _entitled_ to spend my life with the man I love.”

Draco leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, then, before Harry could say anything, grabbed his wand from the nightstand and hopped off the bed. Harry watched him pad over to the dressing table, his naked body glowing silver-white in the moonlight. With a flick of his wand, he lit the lamp standing on the table and sat down in the chair.

“What’re you doing?”

“Just having a look.”

Kicking free of the blankets, Harry crossed the room to his side. Their gazes met in the mirror. Draco smiled up at him. On a sudden impulse, Harry dropped down to kneel beside the chair and lean his head into the other man’s shoulder. Then, again, he turned to look at their reflections in the mirror.

Draco’s face was thoughtful as he studied them both.

“What do you see?” Harry asked, softly.

“You and me, Harry and Draco Potter, exactly where we belong.”

“No ghosts?”

In answer, Draco slipped his arm around Harry’s shoulders and cupped his cheek with his hand. Harry titled his head up just as Draco lowered his, and their lips met in a long, sweet kiss. Draco’s hair spilled around them in a silver curtain. The scent of it made Harry’s head swim with love and longing, even as the taste of his lips made his body sing.

When Draco finally lifted his head, breaking the kiss, Harry wrapped both arms around him and tucked his head under his chin. His eyes—half-closed, dazed with emotion—drifted over to the mirror to find and lock on Draco’s.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

The vision in the mirror, all silver and gold in the lamplight, smiled back at him. “Not half as beautiful as you are.”

“ _Pfft!_ ” Harry snorted, making the hair falling past his face ruffle. “Git.”

“Imbecile.”

“Twat.”

“ _Chosen One_.”

Harry chuckled and nestled his head more comfortably into the curve of Draco’s neck. “That’s low, even for you.”

His eyes drifted closed, and he sighed in contentment when he felt the other man’s hand pushing back his hair, his lips touching his forehead.

“You never could take a compliment,” Draco murmured, his mouth brushing Harry’s skin. Then, very quietly, “You are beautiful, Harry, and I could sit here all night, just looking at you like this.”

“On my knees at your feet?” Harry teased gently.

“Soft. Warm. Open.”

Startled by his earnest words, Harry lifted and turned his head, searching Draco’s face, and caught the gleam of tears in his eyes. He moved quickly, straining up to capture his lips in a hungry, open-mouthed kiss. Draco met him eagerly, clutching at his hair, slanting his head to bring their mouths more tightly together. At the first stroke of his tongue, Harry felt his cock begin to fill.

“ _Harry_ ,” Draco groaned against his mouth.

“Draco…” he mumbled, still kissing and clinging to his overheated lips, “I’d like to see you warm and open… spread out on the bed for me…”

“Yes. _Please._ ”

“Please, what?” Harry prompted, as he moved to nibble down Draco’s throat.

“Do it. Spread me open and take me. Let me see you come apart inside me.”

Harry rose smoothly to his feet and held out his hand. Draco took it, let Harry pull him up and into his arms, let Harry lift his feet from the floor and carry him over to the bed. Harry laid him gently down on the mattress, crouched between his spread legs, settled atop him and slid effortlessly into his body. Then he propped himself up on his elbows and looked down.

Draco was staring intently at him, tears now filling his eyes and threatening to spill over. His lips—his wide, beautiful, expressive lips—were trembling.

Harry stroked his hair back and gazed at him in wonder. His heart clenched. His cock twitched.

“What do you see?” he whispered.

“Harry Potter,” Draco smiled and the first tear slipped between his lashes to slide into the hair at his temple, “my husband, exactly where he belongs.”

**_Finis_**


End file.
